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meri_uwu's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
5.0
Andrea Long Chu uses The scum manifesto to create a new radical vision of autogynephilia where everything in this universe revolves around autogynephilia.
afrinazerinnoor's review against another edition
1.5
As a TERF I absolutely love this porn-addicted autogynophile's ramblings. He thinks of his views on the female condition to be something profound. It's not, it's well-phrased semi-coherent nonsense. His notion of "female"ness is misogynistic to the core and in its flesh, with only a thin transparent layer of irony providing some cover, which seems to be enough for people who hold the view that by virtue of being apparently the most oppressed group, trans woMEN have transcended their human frames and are prophets upon whom the answer to what it really means to be a woman has been revealed. They are beings who've chosen to let go of their male privilege to become their true selves. They are more of a woman than any actual woman who only happened to be born into a female frame. Andrea in very flowery language admits to his regressive views about womanhood, and boldly asserts that his porn-rotted views are more mature and grounded in reality than radical feminist analysis of what it means to exist as a woman which he thinks is juvenile. He admits that "He is helplessly addicted to porn" but does not seem to be aware of the fact that this p*** addiction is what is behind the formation of his view that being female is to submit to become a f***hole (in relation to a pornographic object, your own and other people's will, or a physical phallus). This same crowd insists that the physiological notion of femaleness is limiting or even insulting to women. Andrea basically is saying "Yes, my addiction to and dependence on sissy porn strengthened my autogynephilic tendency so much that I had no choice but to submit to it. But fuck it, you are no better, you must have the same impulses, I know you do, you just haven't given into it yet."
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexism and Misogyny
zombiezami's review against another edition
Whelp, I don't know what that was, but I do know it wasn't for me.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Hate crime, Sexual content, Self harm, Medical content, Cursing, Misogyny, Sexism, Dysphoria, and Transphobia
Moderate: Sexual violence, Death, Violence, Deadnaming, Sexual assault, Excrement, Rape, Racism, and Medical trauma
Minor: Slavery, Pregnancy, Mass/school shootings, and Gun violence
dashtaisen's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
5.0
This manifesto is an Experience. It's hard to know which parts to take at face value, and which parts are meant to be provocatively, intentionally misleading. And that's really the point. Normally that's not my thing, but it's a very short and exciting read, so I recommend checking it out even if you're not sure it'd be your kind of book
cupidcove's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
fast-paced
4.5
Though I definitely don't agree with everything said within and think there are elements that could have been explored deeper, this was a highly engaging and entertaining look at gender in conversation with both Valerie Solanas and a variety of modern (primarily internet) subcultures. Would love to see a longer work exploring these ideas.
bombadalejr's review against another edition
5.0
A splendid read for those that enjoy sitting in discomfort - unsure of what the author believes to be true, what they are simply relaying, and what they are using as shock to pull a reader from side to side emotionally.
herre's review against another edition
4.0
it started very strongly but i feel like it didn't lead anywhere
howard's review against another edition
4.0
"I'll define as female any psychic operation in which the self is sacrificed to make room for the desires of another. These desires may be real or imagined, concentrated or diffuse - a boyfriend's sexual needs, a set of cultural expectations, a literal pregnancy - but in all cases, the self is hollowed out, made into an incubator for an alien force. To be female is to let someone else do your desiring for you, at your own expense. This means that femaleness, while it hurts only sometimes, is always bad for you. Its ultimate toll, at least in every case heretofore recorded, is death."
Based on some of the reviews of this I expected it to make a lot less sense. If you take the above thesis at face value, I think the text is very straightforward. Of course, Andrea Long Chu is using a word that already has a definition (females) and giving it a different partly for shock value and partly to be confusing. But I think her arguments about her definition of "females" are salient and thought provoking. I found a lot of value in this short text. She also spends a lot of time dissecting the work of Valerie Solanas, a figure who I am not very familiar with. I can't say I understood the very last few sentences of the book, but overall I had a pretty good time reading this.