[12][13][14][b] After high school, Solanas earned a degree in psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park, where she was in the Psi Chi Honor Society.

[17] According to James Martin Harding, the play is "based on a plot about a woman who 'is a man-hating hustler and panhandler' and who ... ends up killing a man.

[26] She was staying at the Chelsea Hotel and told Warhol that she needed money for rent so he offered to pay her $25 to appear in his film I, a Man (1967).

[26][18] In her role in I, a Man, Solanas leaves the film's title character, played by Tom Baker, to fend for himself, explaining, "I gotta go beat my meat" as she exits the scene.

[27] She was satisfied with her experience working with Warhol and her performance in the film, and brought Maurice Girodias, the founder of Olympia Press, to see it.

The manifesto's opening words are:[29][30] "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 eliminate the male sex.Some authors have argued that the Manifesto is a parody and satirical work targeting patriarchy.

"[40] Solanas intended to write a novel based on the SCUM Manifesto and believed that a conspiracy was behind Warhol's failure to return the Up Your Ass script.

According to an unquoted source in The Outlaw Bible of American Literature, on June 3, 1968, at 9:00 am, Solanas reportedly arrived at the Hotel Chelsea and asked for Girodias at the desk, only to be told he was gone for the weekend.

[43] Actress Sylvia Miles states that Solanas appeared at the Actors Studio looking for Lee Strasberg, asking to leave a copy of Up Your Ass for him.

As related to Fahs, Solanas talked to Feiden for almost four hours, trying to convince her to produce the play and discussing her vision for a world without men.

[44][45] Fahs describes how Feiden then "frantically called her local police precinct, Andy Warhol's precinct, police headquarters in Lower Manhattan, and the offices of Mayor John Lindsay and Governor Nelson Rockefeller to report what happened and inform them that Solanas was on her way at that very moment to shoot Andy Warhol".

[46] In some instances, the police responded that "You can't arrest someone because you believe she is going to kill Andy Warhol", and even asked Feiden, "Listen lady, how would you know what a real gun looked like?

"[46] In a 2009 interview with James Barron of The New York Times, Feiden said that she knew Solanas intended to kill Warhol, but could not prevent it.

[41][53] Later that day, Solanas turned herself in to police, gave up her gun, and confessed to the shooting,[54] telling an officer that Warhol "had too much control in my life".

"[55] At her arraignment in Manhattan Criminal Court, Solanas denied shooting Warhol because he would not produce her play but said "it was for the opposite reason",[57] that "he has a legal claim on my works".

Robert Marmorstein, writing in The Village Voice, declared that Solanas "has dedicated the remainder of her life to the avowed purpose of eliminating every single male from the face of the earth".

"[18][70] English professor Dana Heller argued that Solanas was "very much aware of feminist organizations and activism",[71] but "had no interest in participating in what she often described as 'a civil disobedience luncheon club.

'"[71] Heller also stated that Solanas could "reject mainstream liberal feminism for its blind adherence to cultural codes of feminine politeness and decorum which the SCUM Manifesto identifies as the source of women's debased social status".

[77] In a corrective 1977 Village Voice interview, Solanas said the book would not be autobiographical other than a small portion and that it would be about many things, include proof of statements in the manifesto, and would "deal very intensively with the subject of bullshit", but she said nothing about parody.

[83] A building superintendent at the hotel, not on duty that night, had a vague memory of Solanas: "Once, he had to enter her room, and he saw her typing at her desk.

In the work, Oliveros seeks to explore how, "Both women seemed to be desperate and caught in the traps of inequality: Monroe needed to be recognized for her talent as an actress.

Valerie Shoots Andy (2001), by Carson Kreitzer, starred two actors playing a younger (Heather Grayson) and an older (Lynne McCollough) Solanas.

Rachel Zampelli played Solanas and sang "Big Gun", described as the "evening's strongest number" by The Washington Post.

[93] In 2006 Solanas was featured in eleventh episode of the second season Adult Swim show The Venture Bros as part of a group called The Groovy Gang.

[98] Harding stated that leaving behind the sanitary napkin was part of the performance,[99] and called "attention to basic feminine experiences that were publically [sic] taboo and tacitly elided within avant-garde circles".

[100] Feminist philosopher Avital Ronell compared Solanas to an array of people: Lorena Bobbitt, a "girl Nietzsche", Medusa, the Unabomber, and Medea.

[3] Lord believed that the reissuing of the SCUM Manifesto and the disowning of Solanas by "women's liberation politicos" triggered a wave of radical feminist publications.

According to Vivian Gornick, many of the women's liberation activists who initially distanced themselves from Solanas changed their minds a year later, developing the first wave of radical feminism.

Many contradictions are seen in Solanas' lifestyle as a lesbian who sexually serviced men, her claim to be asexual, a rejection of queer culture, and a non-interest in working with others despite a dependency on others.

She is described as a victim, a rebel, and a desperate loner, yet her cousin says she worked as a waitress in her late 20s and 30s, not primarily as a prostitute, and friend Geoffrey LaGear said she had a "groovy childhood".