Valerie Solanas

Date of Birth: April 9, 1936

Zodiac Sign: Aries

Date of Death: April 25, 1988

Biography

Valerie Jean Solanas was an American radical feminist writer and activist, best known for authoring the SCUM Manifesto, which she self-published in 1967. Born in Ventnor City, New Jersey, Solanas led a tumultuous life characterized by both personal struggles and groundbreaking feminist theory. She endured a troubled childhood marked by abuse, which led her to leave home at a young age. Despite these early hardships, she excelled academically, earning a degree in psychology from the University of Maryland. Solanas moved to New York City in the mid-1960s, where she became involved in the city’s avant-garde art scene. She approached Andy Warhol with a script she had written, hoping to get it produced, but felt increasingly marginalized by him and the male-dominated art world. This sense of marginalization culminated in her shooting Warhol in 1968, an act for which she was arrested and later institutionalized. Despite the notoriety of this act, Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto remains a seminal text in feminist literature. The work calls for the overthrow of the male-dominated society and has been both criticized and celebrated for its radical stance. Solanas struggled with mental health issues throughout her life and spent her later years in relative obscurity, passing away in 1988.

5 Interesting Facts about Valerie Solanas

1. Valerie Solanas was a child prodigy, with an IQ of 165.

2. She was openly lesbian and wrote extensively about gender and sexuality.

3. Solanas supported herself by panhandling and writing pornographic material.

4. The shooting of Andy Warhol led to his lifelong fear of hospitals and drastically changed his art style.

5. Solanas’s SCUM Manifesto has been translated into over a dozen languages and continues to be studied in feminist theory courses.

5 Most Interesting Quotes from Valerie Solanas

1. “I don’t believe in God. I believe in myself.”

2. “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.”

3. “It is now technically feasible to reproduce without the aid of males (or for that matter, females) and to produce only females.”

4. “Every man, deep down, knows he’s a worthless piece of shit.”

5. “A true woman is a man’s equal—a woman who is as good as a man. By definition, there are no true women.”

Highest Net Worth Achieved

Valerie Solanas did not achieve significant financial success during her lifetime. Her net worth is not well documented, but it is generally understood that she lived in poverty.