Valerie Solanas was an American radical feminist and a writer who is most known for authoring the SCUM Manifesto and for trying to kill Andy Warhol – one of the most recognized and popular artists of America. In the SCUM Manifesto, which she self-published in 1967, she called for the complete elimination of the male sex and creation of an ideal society of women. She had hoped that Warhol would produce her play Up Your Ass; however, Warhol found the manuscript objectionable and ended up misplacing it. Frustrated and convinced that Warhol and Girodias – the publisher of Olympia Press who signed her to write for him – wanted to steal her work, she shot and critically injured Warhol. Later, she surrendered herself and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. She was sentenced to three years in prison including treatment in a psychiatric hospital.
