Valerie Solanas
Radical feminist who shot Andy Warhol and wrote the SCUM Manifesto.
Valerie Jean Solanas, born in Ventnor City, New Jersey, in 1936, was an American radical feminist who attempted to kill artist Andy Warhol in 1968. Her father, a bartender, and mother, a dental assistant, divorced when she was young. Solanas claimed her father sexually abused her, and after her mother remarried, she rebelled, becoming truant and once hitting a nun. Sent to live with her grandparents at thirteen, she reported her grandfather was a violent alcoholic who beat her. By fifteen, she was homeless. At seventeen, she gave birth to a son fathered by a married sailor; the child was taken and she never saw him again.
She later earned a psychology degree from the University of Maryland, where she hosted a call-in radio show giving advice on combating men and was openly lesbian. After graduate work at the University of Minnesota and courses at UC Berkeley, she began writing the SCUM Manifesto. In the mid-1960s, she moved to New York City, supporting herself through begging and prostitution. She wrote an autobiographical short story, "A Young Girl's Primer on How to Attain the Leisure Class," published in 1966, and a play, *Up Your Ass*, about a man-hating prostitute who kills a man.
In 1967, Solanas called Warhol at his studio, the Factory, asking him to produce *Up Your Ass*. He accepted the script but, finding it too vulgar, suspected she might be an undercover police officer. When she later demanded money after he claimed to have lost the script, Warhol paid her $25 to appear in his film *I, a Man*. In her role, she leaves the male lead, explaining, "I gotta go beat my meat." She also had a nonspeaking role in *Bike Boy*.
That same year, Solanas self-published the SCUM Manifesto, which blames men for humanity's ills and urges women to eliminate the male sex. Some consider it a satire of patriarchy, but Solanas insisted her intent was "dead serious." While living at the Hotel Chelsea, she met publisher Maurice Girodias. They signed an informal contract in August 1967: she gave him her "next writing" in exchange for $500. Solanas believed this meant Girodias owned her work and later accused Warhol of conspiring with him to prevent its publication.
On June 3, 1968, she shot Warhol and art critic Mario Amaya at the Factory.
- Born
- April 9, 1936, Ventnor City, New Jersey
- Died
- April 25, 1988, of pneumonia
- Field
- Radical feminism, writing
- Nationality
- American
- Known for
- Attempted assassination of Andy Warhol; author of the SCUM Manifesto
Lore & Background
Valerie Solanas was born on April 9, 1936, in Ventnor City, New Jersey, to Louis Solanas and Dorothy Marie Biondo. She alleged that her father regularly sexually abused her. After her parents divorced, she was sent to live with her grandparents, where she reported being beaten by her alcoholic grandfather. At fifteen, she became homeless. In 1953, she gave birth to a son fathered by a married sailor; the child was taken away and she never saw him again. She earned a degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park, where she was openly lesbian despite the conservative climate, and later attended graduate school at the University of Minnesota and the University of California, Berkeley, where she began writing the SCUM Manifesto.
In the mid-1960s, Solanas moved to New York City, supporting herself through begging and prostitution. She wrote an autobiographical short story and a play, Up Your Ass, about a young prostitute. In 1967, she contacted Andy Warhol to produce the play; Warhol accepted the script but later claimed it was lost. He offered her $25 to appear in his film I, a Man. Solanas also met publisher Maurice Girodias at the Hotel Chelsea and signed an informal contract giving him her next writings for $500, which she later believed was a conspiracy with Warhol to steal her work.
On June 3, 1968, Solanas shot Warhol and art critic Mario Amaya at the Factory, Warhol's studio in Manhattan. She turned herself in that evening, telling a policeman that Warhol 'had too much control in my life.' She was charged with attempted murder, assault, and illegal possession of a firearm. Diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, she was sentenced to three years in prison. After release, she was arrested again in 1971 for aggravated assault after threatening editors Barney Rosset and Fred Jordan of Grove Press, and was institutionalized several times. She later worked as an editor for the feminist magazine Majority Report before drifting into obscurity and dying destitute of pneumonia in 1988.
Reader's Guide
Valerie Solanas remains a controversial figure in feminist history, primarily known for the SCUM Manifesto and her attempted assassination of Andy Warhol. The Manifesto, which calls for the elimination of the male sex, has been interpreted both as a serious political statement and as a satire, with Solanas insisting it was 'dead serious.' Her actions and writings have been analyzed as expressions of radical feminist thought and as the product of mental illness, given her diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. The shooting of Warhol brought her notoriety and has been the subject of numerous books, films, and academic studies. Despite her obscurity in later life, the SCUM Manifesto has been translated into over a dozen languages and excerpted in feminist anthologies, ensuring her continued relevance in discussions of gender, power, and extremism. Her life story highlights the intersections of creativity, mental health, and political violence.
Did You Know?
- Solanas wrote insults for children to use on one another for a dime when she was a child.
- She beat up a girl in high school who was bothering a younger boy, and also hit a nun.
- While at the University of Maryland, she hosted a call-in radio show giving advice on how to combat men.
- After the shooting, she demanded a retraction of a newspaper headline calling her an actress, insisting, 'I'm a writer, not an actress.'
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