Editing Valerie Solanas (section)

== Early life ==
Valerie Solanas was born in 1936 in [[Ventnor City, New Jersey]], to Louis Solanas and Dorothy Marie Biondo.<ref>State of California. California Death Index, 1940–1997. Sacramento, CA: State of California Department of Health Services, Center for Health Statistics.</ref><ref>{{harvp|Violet|1990|p=184}}.</ref><ref name="Lord">{{harvp|Lord|2010}}.</ref><ref>{{harvp|Harron|1996|p=xi}}.</ref> Her father was a bartender and her mother a dental assistant.<ref name="Lord" /><ref name="Fahs_3">{{harvp|Fahs|2014|p=3}}.</ref> She had a younger sister, Judith Arlene Solanas Martinez.<ref>{{harvp|Jansen|2011|p=141}}.</ref> Her father was born in [[Montreal]], Quebec, Canada, to parents who immigrated from Spain. Her mother was an Italian-American of [[Genoa]]n and [[Sicilian Americans|Sicilian]] descent born in [[Philadelphia]].<ref name="Fahs_3" />

Solanas alleged that her father regularly [[child sexual abuse|sexually abused]] her.<ref name="Watson35">{{harvp|Watson|2003|pp=35–36}}.</ref> Her parents divorced when she was young, and her mother remarried shortly afterwards.<ref>{{harvp|Solanas|1996|p=48}}.</ref> Solanas disliked her stepfather and began rebelling against her mother, becoming a [[truancy|truant]]. As a child, she wrote insults for children to use on one another, for the cost of a dime. She beat up a girl in high school who was bothering a younger boy, and also hit a [[nun]].<ref name="Lord" />

Because of her rebellious behavior, Solanas' mother sent her to be raised by her grandparents in 1949. Solanas reported that her grandfather was a violent alcoholic who often beat her. When she was aged 15, she left her grandparents and became homeless.<ref>{{harvp|Buchanan|2011|p=132}}.</ref> In 1953, Solanas gave birth to a son, fathered by a married sailor.<ref>{{harvp|Fahs|2014|pp=23–24}}.</ref>{{Efn|Solanas's cousin claimed the man was a sailor, and that she may have also given birth to a second child before leaving home.<ref name="Fahs2008">{{harvp|Fahs|2008}}.</ref>}} The child, named David, was taken away and she never saw him again.<ref name="Coburn">{{cite web |first=Judith |last=Coburn |date=January 11, 2000 |title=Solanas Lost and Found |work=[[The Village Voice]] |url=http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-01-11/news/solanas-lost-and-found/ |access-date=November 27, 2011 |archive-date=October 13, 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121013095242/http://www.villagevoice.com/2000-01-11/news/solanas-lost-and-found/ |url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name="Jobey">{{cite news |first=Liz |last=Jobey, Liz |title=Solanas and Son |newspaper=[[The Guardian]] |date=August 24, 1996}}</ref><ref>{{harvp|Hewitt|2004|p=602}}.</ref>{{Efn|Lord stated that Solanas and her son lived with "a middle-class military couple outside of Washington, D.C." before she went to the University of Maryland. This couple might have paid for her college tuition, according to Lord.<ref name="Lord" />}}

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.<ref>{{harvp|Heller|2008|p=154}}.</ref><ref>Regarding the honor society: {{harvp|Jansen|2011|p=152}}.</ref> While at the University of Maryland, she hosted a call-in radio show where she gave advice on how to combat men.<ref name="Watson35" /> Solanas was an open lesbian, despite the conservative cultural climate of the 1950s.<ref name="Heller2001">{{harvp|Heller|2001}}.</ref>

Solanas attended the [[University of Minnesota]]'s Graduate School of Psychology, where she worked in the animal research laboratory,<ref name="Nickels2005C">{{harvp|Nickels|2005|pp=15–16}}.</ref> before dropping out and moving to attend [[University of California, Berkeley|Berkeley]] for a few courses. It was during this time that she began writing the ''SCUM Manifesto''.<ref name="Jobey" />