Perceiving Shit as Shit: On the Grammar of Patriarchy in Solanas’ SCUM Manifesto

Abstract

This article investigates the ways in which ValerieSolanas takes on what we call the 'grammar of patriarchy' in The SCUM manifesto. We argue that the manifesto provides us with philosophical insights similar to those provided by thinkers such as Nietzsche, Butler, Adorno and De Beauvoir. We argue that the philosophical and critical value in the manifesto lies in Solanas' descriptions and her style of writing. In the manifesto, as well as in this article, conventions of philosophical writing, and feminist academic writing are challenged. By reading the manifesto as a philosophical text, the article focuses on questions of human life, death, hope, change, frustration, anger and love.

Negative Affect,SCUM, and the Politics of Possibility

“…. but in the everyday: in ordinary language and in our shared human lives,” and thus should be examined as a way to trace a use of negativity beyond antirelationality (Peltonen, Lindman, & Nyman, 2017, p. 2). SCUM is a complicated text, where the reader has to engage the writing with nuance.…”

“…Building from Wittgenstein, Peltonen et al (2017) mark Solanas’ writing style as a “grammar of patriarchy” because of the “descriptions of violence, contempt, and self-absorption as deeply ingrained elements in our form of life” (p. 2). I want to adopt their articulation of Solanas’ writing style because it offers a clear understanding of the mode in which Solanas writes—one that works to mobilize the affective possibility of the negative.…”