Typescript Press Statement regarding Valerie Solanas. With file of related material.
Atkinson, Ti-Grace. Typed Press Statement Signed, “Ti-Grace Atkinson,” to be delivered at a press conference at the New York City Criminal Court, June 13, 1968; three leaves, rectos only, tears in upper left corners.
Together with:
Typed Letter with annotations by Ti-Grace Atkinson, June 20, 1968; one leaf, recto only, faint spott on bottom right corner.
Together with:
Bender, Marilyn. Typed Newspaper Article, “Valerie Solanas a Heroine to Feminists” by Marilyn Bender, June 14, 1968; one leaf, recto only.
Ti-Grace Atkinson, president of the New York N.O.W. chapter, uses the term “radical feminism” in its first recorded use in this supportive statement of Valerie Solanas where she claims that she met Solanas on the day of this press conference, June 13, 1968, but had known about her for six months “as the leader of a radical and militant feminist group called S.C.U.M., the Society for Cutting up Men.”
Atkinson argues that Solanas’ action the attempted assassination of Andy Warhol for which she is on trial) has been wrongly understood and sensationalized instead of judged as a “politically motivated act.”
Therefore, Atkinson uses Solanas’ trial as a jumping off point for a discussion on the unsuccessful legal means organizations like NOW and the ACLU were taking to achieve freedom for women. “I can’t speak for the world, but the 6 o’clock T.V. News regularly leers at human rights for women. It has taken a shooting to make the front page. It is the media and, thus, the public that endorses violence; no one listens to hearings and peaceful demonstrations.”
She finishes with a call for change, with an understanding that violence, like the violence taken by Solanas, might be the unavoidable next step. “If society refuses to listen to reason, I fear that violent acts by women will increase sharply. Society must not and, in fact, cannot deny women human rights any longer.”
Marilyn Bender picked up the story of Florynce Kennedy’s support (she served as Solanas’ lawyer and calls her “one of the most important spokeswomen of the feminist movement” in Bender’s article) and Atkinson’s speech about Solanas, ironically proving Atkinson’s point that women’s rights stories were “relegated to the ‘Woman’s Section’ along with women’s rights unless women’s rights become important, i.e. violent, and then that’s moved up front and given to a male reporter who knows nothing about the subject!”
The article identifies Kennedy and Atkinson as representatives of NOW, which became highly controversial as the NOW organization resolved in a typed letter to “repudiate the implications of NOW support and interest in the article headlined “Valeria Solanis a Heroine to Feminists.” (Yes, first and last name misspellings are the ultimate form of non-recognition.)
Atkinson annotates this letter with defenses such as “imply we did; I already said didn’t” to the Atkinson-underlined NOW claim that she and Kennedy “had no right to use the name of NOW or imply any interest on our part.”
The typed letter from NOW ends:
In fact, neither NOW nor NOW-New York has even considered this case or taken any stand; therefore the members mentioned above had no right to make statements about the case.
Atkinson parenthetically encloses and underlines and hastily draws lines around the second half of this statement with annotations:
but we didn’t!
and:
as members, certainly not
(#4655366)
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