Unworking it

Apropos of nothing, I’ve been planning to do this for a long time. That’s right, post one of greatest literary classics of the 20th century, by one of the 20th century’s best writers. I seem to have missed the anniversary of the event that made her most famous, but I won’t wait a whole year for that to come around again. (The only problem with the work is the occasional transphobia, but hey, just like Thomas Jefferson and slavery, it was another era.)

And without further ado, I bring you … The SCUM Manifesto by Valerie Solanas, the essay that launched a thousand MRA web sites:

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 destroy the male sex.

…

Provide the male with a goal. Incapable of enjoying the moment, the male needs something to look forward to, and money provides him with an eternal, never-ending goal: Just think of what you could do with 80 trillion dollars — invest it! And in three years time you’d have 300 trillion dollars!!!

…

Exposes. The male’s chief delight in life — insofar as the tense, grim male can ever be said to delight in anything — is in exposing others. It doesn’t’ much matter what they’re exposed as, so long as they’re exposed; it distracts attention from himself. Exposing others as enemy agents (Communists and Socialists) is one of his favorite pastimes, as it removes the source of the threat to him not only from himself, but from the country and the Western world. The bugs up his ass aren’t in him, they’re in Russia.

…

Why produce even females? Why should there be future generations? What is their purpose? When aging and death are eliminated, why continue to reproduce? Why should we care what happens when we’re dead? Why should we care that there is no younger generation to succeed us.

Eventually the natural course of events, of social evolution, will lead to total female control of the world and, subsequently, to the cessation of the production of males and, ultimately, to the cessation of the production of females.

But SCUM is impatient; SCUM is not consoled by the thought that future generations will thrive; SCUM wants to grab some thrilling living for itself. And, if a large majority of women were SCUM, they could acquire complete control of this country within a few weeks simply by withdrawing from the labor force, thereby paralyzing the entire nation. Additional measures, any one of which would be sufficient to completely disrupt the economy and everything else, would be for women to declare themselves off the money system, stop buying, just loot and simply refuse to obey all laws they don’t care to obey. The police force, National Guard, Army, Navy and Marines combined couldn’t squelch a rebellion of over half the population, particularly when it’s made up of people they are utterly helpless without.

…

SCUM will become members of the unwork force, the fuck-up force; they will get jobs of various kinds an unwork. For example, SCUM salesgirls will not charge for merchandise; SCUM telephone operators will not charge for calls; SCUM office and factory workers, in addition to fucking up their work, will secretly destroy equipment. SCUM will unwork at a job until fired, then get a new job to unwork at.

SCUM will forcibly relieve bus drivers, cab drivers and subway token sellers of their jobs and run buses and cabs and dispense free tokens to the public.

SCUM will destroy all useless and harmful objects — cars, store windows, `Great Art’, etc.

Eventually SCUM will take over the airwaves — radio and TV networks — by forcibly relieving of their jobs all radio and TV employees who would impede SCUM’s entry into the broadcasting studios.

SCUM will couple-bust — barge into mixed (male-female) couples, wherever they are, and bust them up.

…

A completely automated society can be accomplished very simply and quickly once there is a public demand for it. The blueprints for it are already in existence, and it’s construction will take only a few weeks with millions of people working on it. Even though off the money system, everyone will be most happy to pitch in and get the automated society built; it will mark the beginning of a fantastic new era, and there will be a celebration atmosphere accompanying the construction.

The elimination of money and the complete institution of automation are basic to all other SCUM reforms; without these two the others can’t take place; with them the others will take place very rapidly. The government will automatically collapse. With complete automation it will be possible for every woman to vote directly on every issue by means of an electronic voting machine in her house. Since the government is occupied almost entirely with regulating economic affairs and legislating against purely private matters, the elimination of money wand with it the elimination of males who wish to legislate `morality’ will mean there will be practically no issues to vote on.

…

The sick, irrational men, those who attempt to defend themselves against their disgustingness, when they see SCUM barrelling down on them, will cling in terror to Big Mama with her Big Bouncy Boobies, but Boobies won’t protect them against SCUM; Big Mama will be clinging to Big Daddy, who will be in the corner shitting in his forceful, dynamic pants. Men who are rational, however, won’t kick or struggle or raise a distressing fuss, but will just sit back, relax, enjoy the show and ride the waves to their demise.