The earliest iteration of a feminist espousal of celibacy and separatism was arguably Valerie Solanas’s “SCUM Manifesto: Society for Cutting Up Men” (1967). Most famous for her attempted assassination of pop artist Andy Warhol in 1968, Valerie Solanas was never officially allied with the feminist movement. Nevertheless, many of her contemporaries considered the “SCUM Manifesto” one of the first, and most visceral, statements of radical feminist theory, with its sharp satirical attack on male supremacy. Having written the manifesto in 1967, Solanas shilled self-produced mimeographed copies of it on the streets of New York until her trial brought her national notoriety and fame. Thereafter, the manifesto became standard reading for feminist groups. Though
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many radical feminists disagreed with Solanas’s unapologetic tirade against men her ideas were foundational for militant groups like Cell 16 and The Feminists.5
The “SCUM Manifesto” argued that men were naturally inferior to women and that they were not only responsible for women’s oppression, but for all other social ills as well. It was up to independent “SCUM women” to change the social order by challenging not only men, but also women who “[were] not even dimly aware of where they’re at in relation to men” and were thus complicit in extending patriarchy.6 According to Solanas, “women who are aware of the extent of their superiority to and power over men, could acquire complete control over everything within a few weeks, could effect a total submission of males to females.”7 One way for women to exercise their inherent superiority over men, Solanas argued, was to cast aside their sexuality. Sex drive, in Solanas’s estimation, was a masculine invention that had little benefit for women: “Sex is not part of a relationship; on the contrary, it is a solitary experience, non-creative, a gross waste of time.” Women who could “condition away [their] sex drive,” Solanas explained,
5 For discussions of the history of Valerie Solanas and “The SCUM Manifesto” see Alice Echols,
Daring to be Bad: Radical Feminism in America, 1967-1975 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989), 104-105; Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, Outlaw Woman: A Memoir of the War Years, 1960-1975 (San Francisco: City Lights, 2001), 118-120; and B. Ruby Rich, “Manifesto Destiny: Drawing a Bead on Valerie Solanas,” Voice Literary Supplement, October 1993, 16-17. “The SCUM Manifesto” was also excerpted in
Sisterhood is Powerful (1970) and was more recently included in Radical Feminism: A Documentary History. Citations refer to the version in Radical Feminism. See Valerie Solanas, “SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto,” in Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader, ed. Barbara A. Crow (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 201-222; and Valerie Solanas, “Excerpts from the SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) Manifesto,” in Sisterhood is Powerful: An Anthology of Writings From the Women's Movement, ed. Robin Morgan (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), 577-583.
6 Solanas, “SCUM Manifesto,” 217. 7 Ibid.
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would become “completely cool and cerebral and free to pursue truly worthy relationships and activities.”8
Solanas’s argument that celibacy would allow women to “pursue truly worthy relationships” reflected her view that men and male supremacy made true friendship and love impossible: “Love can’t flourish in a society based on money and meaningless work; it requires complete economic as well as personal freedom, leisure time and the
opportunity to engage in intensely absorbing, emotionally satisfying activities, which, when shared with those you respect, lead to deep friendship.” And, friendship, according to Solanas, was what love was really about. “Love is not dependency or sex, but
friendship,” she explained, “and, therefore, love can’t exist between two males, between a male and a female or between two females, one or both of whom is a mindless,
insecure, pandering male; like conversation, love can exist only between two secure, free- wheeling, independent, groovy female females, since friendship is based on respect, not contempt.”9 In anticipation of lesbian feminism and arguments in favor of the “woman- identified woman,” Solanas thus suggested that only autonomous, liberated women were capable of sharing love with one another and identified the gendered ideals of romantic love as the real problem.
Much of Solanas’s work was off-putting to liberal feminists (who wanted to bring women into the mainstream of society alongside men) and also for many radical
feminists who did not agree that celibacy, let alone separating from men sexually and romantically, was a necessary step in defeating patriarchy. Nevertheless, her argument that romantic love was a patriarchal construction with no relevance outside of
8 Ibid., 213. 9 Ibid., 211.
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hierarchical relationships was one that many radical feminists shared. Moreover, even though many radical feminists found her man-hating unsavory, a number of radical feminists shared her sentiments. Radical feminist Joanna Russ, for instance, espoused man-hating as a valid and legitimate feminist prerogative. Pointing out that man-hating was much less pervasive than misogyny (“for every Valerie Solanas, how many rapists, how many male murderers are there?”), Russ argued that women were conditioned “to love our men—uncritically and in fear of the consequences if we don’t.” Misandry thus took “considerable ingenuity, originality, and resilience” and was an appropriate form of self-preservation.10 Another radical feminist, Pamela Kearon, argued that despite
perceptions that women were naturally inclined to love, there was “nothing natural about loving one’s oppressor.” Man-hating was an honorable but “difficult stance because it requires a fidelity to what is real in us and neither innocuous nor attractive to oppressors,” the “part which is really human and cannot submit.”11 Later in the 1970s, self-described dyke separatists would pick up the banner of man-hating as legitimate and worthy of feminists.12
10 Joanna Russ, “The New Misandry: In Defense of Hating Men” (KNOW, Inc., 1972), Box 23, Folder 4, Women's Liberation Collection, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.
11 Pamela Kearon was a member of Redstockings before defecting from that group to join The Feminists, which was much more geared towards separatism. Pamela Kearon, “Man-Hating,” in Notes from the Second Year Women's Liberation: Major Writings of Radical Feminists, ed. Shulamith Firestone and Anne Koedt (New York: Radical Feminism, 1970), 84 and 86, Box 18, Folder 2, Women’s Liberation Collection, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College Northampton, Mass.
12 Some lesbian-feminists argued that straight women were much more likely to hate men than lesbians were; however, during the early 1970s, certain lesbian-feminist groups and individuals fully embraced misandry as legitimate and necessary. Lesbian-feminists who argued in favor of man-hating often called themselves “dyke separatists.” For examples, see Jeanne Cordova, “Radical Feminism? Dyke Separatism?,” in Radical Feminism: A Documentary Reader, ed. Barbara A. Crow (New York: New York University Press, 2000), 358-364; Susan Cavin, “Manhaters Know ManHateHers,” Tribad: A Lesbian Separatist Newsjournal 1, no. 1 (May 1977): 4, Carton 2, Folder 66, Charlotte Bunch Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University; Charoula, “Dyke Separatist Womanifesto,” Tribad: A Lesbian Separatist Newsjournal 1, no. 1 (May 1977): 1-4, Carton 2, Folder 66, Charlotte Bunch Papers, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University; “Notes On Dyke Separatism,” Box 36, Folder
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Among the radical feminists who were not alienated by Solanas’s man-hating was Cell 16. Founded in the summer of 1968, Cell 16 reportedly read the “SCUM Manifesto” as their first order of business. Cell 16 agreed with the central tenets of the “SCUM Manifesto” and they found Solanas’s view of sexuality, her advocacy of celibacy, and her disavowal of love especially compelling. They frequently included excerpts from
“SCUM Manifesto” in their journal, No More Fun and Games, quoted from it when speaking at women’s liberation meetings and conferences, and even met with Solanas while she was incarcerated and institutionalized following her assassination attempt on Andy Warhol.13
Cell 16 was among the first radical feminist groups “to propose that women withdraw from men personally as well as politically.”14 Roxanne Dunbar, who came to women’s liberation via her Marxist politics, co-founded Cell 16 and dictated much of its ideology until her departure from the group in 1970. The original group (which included Dana Densmore) saw the liberation of women as central to a larger assault on capitalism, racism, and imperialism.15 Drawing connections between women’s subordination and
619, Noel Phyllis Birkby Papers, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass; and Jill Johnston, Lesbian Nation: The Feminist Solution (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1973).
13 Cell 16’s journal, No More Fun and Games, reflected an indebtedness to Solanas with its frequent inclusion of brief excerpts of her works. The fourth issue of the journal included four excerpts from “SCUM Manifesto” and the fifth issue began and ended with excerpts. See No More Fun and Games, no. 4 (April 1970), 8, 19, 29, and 57; and No More Fun and Games, no. 5 (July 1971), title page and 127. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz also wrote in her memoir, Outlaw Woman, about her strong reaction to Valerie Solanas and described how she and members of Cell 16 frequently read excerpts from “SCUM Manifesto” at feminist gatherings. Dunbar-Ortiz, Outlaw Woman , 109-224, passim. See also Echols, Daring to be Bad, 160; Sara Evans, Personal Politics: The Roots of Women's Liberation in the Civil Rights Movement and the New Left, Reprint. (New York: Vintage Books, 1980), 209; and Rich, “Manifesto Destiny: Drawing a Bead on Valerie Solanas,” 17.
14 Echols, Daring to be Bad, 164. 15 Dunbar-Ortiz, Outlaw Woman, passim.
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other forms of oppression, Cell 16’s theories focused on how women could cast off the yoke of male supremacy. Frequently, they identified heterosexual intimacy as a pivot of women’s oppression and suggested that women should sever ties with men. As Dunbar argued in an essay co-written with fellow member Lisa Leghorn, “Not having the possibility of a relationship of equals with a man, [woman] will choose to have no relationship with a man.”16 Likening relationships between man-woman relationship to that of the master and slave, Roxanne Dunbar later concluded: “If we do not openly admit our contempt for men and their ‘needs,’ it is not out of love, but out of fear—of losing the precious few privileges we have gained since coming ‘up from Slavery.’”17
In addition to critiquing heterosexual romantic intimacy, Cell 16 embraced an androgynous style of dress and practiced martial arts as a form of self-defense. They took pride in their militancy and were especially known for their activist theatrics—such as the (in)famous cutting of their hair at the First Congress to Unite Women.18 Of utmost
importance in their effort to cast aside sex-role conditioning, Cell 16 argued that women needed to become aware of their “diffidence and their dependence upon men” and to “[take] off the accumulated emotional and physical flab that kept them enthralled to men.”19
16 Roxanne Dunbar and Lisa Leghorn, “Are Men the Enemy?” Box 23, Folder 2, Women's Liberation Collection, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.
17 Roxanne Dunbar, “What is to be Done?” No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female
Liberation, no. 1 (October 1968; repr., December 1969).
18 The development and evolution of Cell 16’s thought and action is evident in their journal, No
More Fun and Games, which had six issues running from October 1968 through May 1973. Historian Alice Echols has also examined the group in detail. See Echols, Daring to be Bad, 158-166; No More Fun and Games, no. 1 (October 1968; repr., December 1969); No More Fun and Games, no. 2 (February 1969); No More Fun and Games, no. 3 (November 1969); No More Fun and Games, no. 4 (April 1970); No More Fun and Games, no. 5 (July 1971); and No More Fun and Games, no. 6 (May 1973).
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The idea that men invariably oppressed women permeated Cell 16’s writings and became a basis for their advocacy of celibacy as a useful and legitimate choice. The group’s critique of heterosexuality was based on their belief that patriarchy was so systematically pervasive that all men participated in male supremacy, whether
consciously or not.20 As Betsy Warrior explained in one essay, “most men are incapable of having an egalitarian relationship with a woman; they can’t even imagine what one would be like because their roles are too internalized and ingrained.” Patriarchal
conditioning similarly crippled women in romantic relationships making them unable to recognize their own situation. Once women took a step back from relationships and recognized their “degradation and oppression,” they would realize that romantic
relationships were “worthless, because the price you have to pay is too great in terms of self-respect.”21 As Lisa Leghorn argued, with women giving their all and men not reciprocating, there was “no shame involved with the abstention from these kinds of relationships with men.”22
20 Cell 16 members frequently explored the idea that all men participated in male supremacy in No
More Fun and Games. For examples, see Donna Allen, “Why Can't Men Listen to Women?,” No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation, no. 4 (April 1970): 86-87; Dana Densmore, “The Plea for Gradualism,” No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation, no. 4 (April 1970): 88-90; Dana Densmore, “Who is Saying Men are the Enemy?,” No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation, no. 4 (April 1970): 4-8; Dana Densmore, “The Dating Fraud,” No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation, no. 5 (July 1971): 4-10; Dana Densmore, “On Communication,” No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation, no. 5 (July 1971): 66 -81; Dana Densmore, “The Slave's Stake in the Home,” No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation, no. 2 (February 1969): 14- 20; Dana Densmore, “Against Liberals,” No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation, no. 2 (February 1969): 60-63; Hilary Langhorst, “A Final Word,” No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation, no. 3 (November 1969): 114-116; Abby Rockefeller, “Sex: The Basis of Sexism,” No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation, no. 6 (May 1973): 5-37.
21 Betsy Warrior, “Battle Lines,” No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation, no. 3 (November 1969): 28-29.
22 Lisa Leghorn, “All or Nothing,” No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation, no. 3 (November 1969): 86.
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But if heterosexuality was problematic, so too was lesbianism, which Dunbar and Leghorn said was “no more than a personal ‘solution.’”23 Later, when lesbian feminist Rita Mae Brown criticized Dunbar for opposing lesbianism, Dunbar declared: “What I want to do is get women out of bed. Women can love each other but they don’t have to sleep together.”24 Here, Dunbar’s argument that love should be separated from sex echoed Solanas’s definition of friendship. It also indicated that sexual revolution had done little to liberate women from deeply engrained patriarchal customs.25 Like other feminists at the time, Cell 16 questioned the idea that the sexual revolution freed women and were concerned that arguments to that effect obscured the need for further, more comprehensive, change. As Dana Densmore argued, greater freedom in sexual
relationships meant little and only further stifled women without an understanding of how power was created via sex and emotional intimacy. What women really needed was “independence from the sexual revolution” so that they could begin the process of determining their own needs.26
Dana Densmore, who was one of the most prolific of Cell 16’s theorists, likewise addressed the issue of lesbianism. Arguing that homosexuality, like heterosexuality, was constructed, Densmore suggested that all forms of sexuality were “oppressive and
23 Roxanne Dunbar and Lisa Leghorn, “Are Men the Enemy?;” and Roxanne Dunbar and Lisa Leghorn, “The Man's Problem,” No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation, no. 3 (November 1969): 26.
24 Roxanne Dunbar, quoted in Echols, Daring to be Bad, 165. Dunbar-Ortiz also addressed this in her memoir and noted that Rita Mae Brown made the attack in Rat. Dunbar-Ortiz, Outlaw Woman, 235.
25 See Roxanne Dunbar, “'Sexual Liberation': More of the Same Thing,” No More Fun and
Games: A Journal of Female Liberation, no. 3 (November 1969): 49-56; Lanayre Liggera, “The Orgasm Mystique,” No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation, no. 3 (November 1969): 83-84.
26 Dana Densmore, “Independence from the Sexual Revolution,” in Notes From the Third Year:
Women's Liberation, ed. Shulamith Firestone and Anne Koedt (New York: Notes From the Third Year, 1971), 56-61.
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neurotic and degrading” within patriarchy and would “be risen above in the liberated society.” Drawing comparisons between human sex and sex among “healthy animals” (an analogy she admitted was problematic), Densmore questioned the idea that
heterosexuality was “natural” in order to argue that homosexuality was “unnatural.” “[H]omosexuality arises because of the unnaturalness of the roles forced on men and women,” she explained. “Women can’t face the degradation imposed by men, so they turn to women. Men can’t respect women so they turn to men they can respect.” Like heterosexual sex, then, same-sex relationships were also based on the “false male-female dichotomy.”27 If people were confident in themselves independently, sexual encounters of any kind would serve little purpose. Lesbianism was, thus, just as futile as
heterosexual romance.
In another essay written around the same time, Densmore continued to draw connections between sex and romantic love, arguing that society conditioned people to see a link between the two. Arguing that sexual need was primarily constructed, rather than natural, Densmore suggested that people confused sexual desire with the need for emotional intimacy and companionship, among other things. According to Densmore, these “needs” were just as likely psychological as they were physical and she suggested that people clung to sexual intimacy because it combated the feelings of isolation that accompanied the era’s obsession with individualism.28 Whereas women tended to identify affection and companionship as the most important aspects of loving
27 Dana Densmore, “Sexuality,” No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation, no. 1 (October 1968; repr., December 1969).
28 See Dana Densmore, “Without You and Within You” (KNOW PRESS, Inc., June 1969), 8-9, Box 2, Folder 5, Women's Liberation Collection, Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College, Northampton, Mass.; and Dana Densmore, “With You and Within You,” No More Fun and Games: A Journal of Female Liberation, no. 4 (April 1970): 45-57.
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relationships, men saw sex as the primary goal, thus rendering “the sexual love relationship a poor place for a woman to seek communication and human
understanding.”29 Avoiding sexual relationships would allow women (and men) to understand that sex was not necessarily the best way to demonstrate or receive love.30
In critiquing sexuality, Densmore was making a powerful case for the legitimacy and necessity of celibacy for feminists. In arguing that sex was an inessential component of life, Densmore pointed to the ways in which women were “programmed to crave sex” which was ultimately about power. Society conditioned women to believe that sex “promise[d] a spark of individual self-assertion in a dull and routinized world,” and thus offered them their only means to power in a society that disallowed their self-assertion in any other setting. But at the same time, sex also offered men a means of power over women. Such power dynamics were further complicated because sexual desire,
Densmore contended, often masqueraded as the “desire for recognition or love.” Celibacy