NOTES

Valerie Jean Solanas (April 9, 1936 – April 25, 1988) was an American radical feminist writer who is best known for her assassination attempt on artist Andy Warhol. Born in New Jersey, Solanas after her parents' divorce had a volatile relationship with her mother and stepfather, as a teenager. As a consequence, she was sent to live with her grandparents. Her alcoholic grandfather physically abused her and Solanas ran away and became homeless. She came out as a lesbian in the 1950s. She graduated with a degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. Solanas relocated to Berkeley, California. There, she began writing her most notable work, the SCUM Manifesto, which urged women to "overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate the male sex."[1][2]

In 1967, Solanas self-published her best-known work, the SCUM Manifesto. "SCUM", generally held to be an acronym of "Society for Cutting Up Men", actually does not appear as an acronym in the body of the manifesto.[30] It was her first publisher, Maurice Girodias, who claimed that SCUM stood for "Society for Cutting Up Men",[30] something which, according to Susan Ware et al., Solanas "never seems to have intended."[31] However, the phrase is on the cover of the 1967 self-published edition, after the title, in "Presentation of ... SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) ....",[32] where it is not an expansion of a title word. The manifesto's opening words are: "Life" in this "society" being, at best, an utter bore and no aspect of "society" being at all relevant to women, there remains to civic-minded, responsible, thrill-seeking females only to overthrow the government, eliminate the money system, institute complete automation and eliminate the male sex. —Valerie Solanas, SCUM Manifesto[33] Some authors have argued that the Manifesto is a parody of patriarchy and a satirical work and, according to Harding, Solanas described herself as "a social propagandist",[34] but Solanas denied that the work was "a put on"[35] and insisted that her intent was "dead serious."[36]While living at the Chelsea Hotel, Solanas introduced herself to Maurice Girodias, the founder of Olympia Press and a fellow resident of the hotel. In August 1967, Girodias and Solanas signed[37] an informal contract stating that she would give Girodias her "next writing, and other writings."[38] In exchange, Girodias paid her $500.[38][39][40] She took this to mean that Girodias would own her work.[40] She told Paul Morrissey that "everything I write will be his. He's done this to me ... He's screwed me!"[40] Solanas intended to write a novel based around the SCUM Manifesto, and believed that a conspiracy was behind Warhol's failure to return the Up Your Ass script. She suspected that he was coordinating with Girodias to steal her work.

http://www.warholstars.org/chron/andydies68n33.html

I Shot Andy Warhol is a 1996 independent film about the life of Valerie Solanas and her relationship with Andy Warhol. The movie marked the debut of Canadian director Mary Harron. The film stars Lili Taylor as Valerie, Jared Harris as Andy Warhol and Martha Plimpton as Valerie's friend Stevie. Stephen Dorff plays Warhol superstar Candy Darling. John Cale of the Velvet Underground wrote the film's score despite protests from former band member Lou Reed. Yo La Tengo plays an anonymous band that is somewhat reminiscent of the group.The film was screened in the Un Certain Regard section at the 1996 Cannes Film Festival.[2]

Simone-Lucie-Ernestine-Marie Bertrand de Beauvoir, commonly known as Simone de Beauvoir (French: [simɔn də bovwaʁ]; 9 January 1908 – 14 April 1986), was a French writer, intellectual, existentialist philosopher, political activist, feminist, and social theorist. While she did not consider herself a philosopher, Beauvoir had a significant influence on both feminist existentialism and feminist theory.[1] Beauvoir wrote novels, essays, biographies, an autobiography, monographs on philosophy, politics, and social issues. She is best known for her novels, including She Came to Stay and The Mandarins, as well as her 1949 treatise The Second Sex, a detailed analysis of women's oppression and a foundational tract of contemporary feminism.

Chapters of Le deuxième sexe (translated as The Second Sex) were originally published in Les Temps modernes,[22] in June 1949. The second volume came a few months after the first in France.[23] It was very quickly published in America as The Second Sex, due to the quick translation by Howard Parshley, as prompted by Blanche Knopf, wife of publisher Alfred A. Knopf. Because Parshley had only a basic familiarity with the French language, and a minimal understanding of philosophy (he was a professor of biology at Smith College), much of Beauvoir's book was mistranslated or inappropriately cut, distorting her intended message.[24] For years Knopf prevented the introduction of a more accurate retranslation of Beauvoir's work, declining all proposals despite the efforts of existentialist scholars.[24] Only in 2009 was there a second translation, to mark the 60th anniversary of the original publication. Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier produced the first integral translation, reinstating a third of the original work. The long-awaited second translation of The Second Sex Beauvoir anticipated the sexually charged feminism of Erica Jong and Germaine Greer.In the chapter "Woman: Myth and Reality" of The Second Sex, Beauvoir argued that men had made women the "Other" in society by putting a false aura of "mystery" around them. She argued that men used this as an excuse not to understand women or their problems and not to help them, and that this stereotyping was always done in societies by the group higher in the hierarchy to the group lower in the hierarchy. She wrote that this also happened on the basis of other categories of identity, such as race, class, and religion. But she said that it was nowhere more true than with gender in which men stereotyped women and used it as an excuse to organize society into a patriarchy.The Second Sex, published in French, sets out a feminist existentialism which prescribes a moral revolution. As an existentialist, Beauvoir believed that existence precedes essence; hence one is not born a woman, but becomes one. Her analysis focuses on the Hegelian concept of the Other. It is the (social) construction of Woman as the quintessential Other that Beauvoir identifies as fundamental to women's oppression. The capitalized 'O' in "other" indicates the wholly other.Beauvoir argued that women have historically been considered deviant, abnormal. She said that even Mary Wollstonecraft considered men to be the ideal toward which women should aspire. Beauvoir said that this attitude limited women's success by maintaining the perception that they were a deviation from the normal, and were always outsiders attempting to emulate "normality". She believed that for feminism to move forward, this assumption must be set aside.Beauvoir asserted that women are as capable of choice as men, and thus can choose to elevate themselves, moving beyond the 'immanence' to which they were previously resigned and reaching 'transcendence', a position in which one takes responsibility for oneself and the world, where one chooses one's freedom.A new translation of The Second Sex for the first time gives access to the entire text in English, as Irene Gammel writes in a Globe and Mail review: "The single most important advantage of this new translation is its completeness, combined with the translators' courage to transpose Beauvoir's existential language, thereby giving readers a sense of Beauvoir's channelling of Hegel, Marx and others."

http://itspronouncedmetrosexual.com/2012/12/reasons-people-believe-feminism-hates-men/

http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dr30q/eli5why_is_feminism_called_feminism_and_not/

http://www.reddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/1dr30q/eli5why_is_feminism_called_feminism_and_not/

http://andienns.wordpress.com/2012/07/11/77-reasons-we-still-need-feminism/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allena/my-morning-jog-three-reas_b_4111534.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allena/my-morning-jog-three-reas_b_4111534.html

http://sorayachemaly.tumblr.com/post/50361809881/why-society-still-needs-feminism-because-to-men

http://www.reddit.com/r/Feminism/comments/1qywqd/i_dont_understand_anymore/

http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1hdc3k/i_believe_feminism_is_outdated_and_that_all/

http://www.reddit.com/r/changemyview/comments/1hdc3k/i_believe_feminism_is_outdated_and_that_all/

VALERIE SOLANAS

Simone de Beauvoir

Do we need feminism?