Valerie Solanas

Valerie Solanas
Solanas in The Village Voice newsroom, 1967, by Fred W. McDarrah
Born	Valerie Jean Solanas (1936-04-09)April 9, 1936 Ventnor City, New Jersey, U.S.
Died	April 25, 1988(1988-04-25) (aged 52) San Francisco, California, U.S.
Education	University of Maryland, College Park
Occupation	Writer
Movement	Radical feminism
Criminal charges	Attempted murder, assault, illegal possession of a gun; plead to reckless assault with intent to harm
Criminal penalty	3 years imprisonment
Children	1
Writing career
Notable works	SCUM Manifesto (1967) Up Your Ass, a play (wr. 1965, prem. 2000, publ. 2014)
Signature

Valerie Jean Solanas (April 9, 1936 – April 25, 1988) was an American radical feminist known for her attempt to murder the artist Andy Warhol in 1968.

Solanas appeared in the Warhol film I, a Man (1967) and self-published the SCUM Manifesto, a feminist pamphlet calling for the extinction of men. She believed Warhol was conspiring with her publisher, Maurice Girodias, to keep her manuscript from getting published. On June 3, 1968, Solanas shot Warhol and art critic Mario Amaya at the Factory. She was charged with attempted murder, assault, and illegal possession of a firearm. Solanas was subsequently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and sentenced to three years in prison. After her release, Solanas was arrested again for aggravated assault in 1971 after threatening Evergreen Review editor Barney Rosset. She continued to promote the SCUM Manifesto and was an editor for the biweekly feminist magazine Majority Report. She became destitute and died of pneumonia in 1988.