 Solanas's role as a cult figure was solidified with the publication of the SCUM Manifesto and her shooting of Andy Warhol. Harding explained that, by declaring herself independent from Andy Warhol, after her arrest she "aligned herself with the historical avant-garde's rejection of the traditional structures of bourgeois theater", and Harding explained that her anti-patriarchal "militant hostility ... pushed the avant-garde in radically new directions." Harding believed that Solanas's assassination attempt on Warhol was its own theatrical performance. At the shooting, she left on a table at the Factory a paper bag in which she carried a gun, her address book, and a sanitary napkin. Harding stated that leaving behind the sanitary napkin was part of the performance, and called "attention to basic feminine experiences that were publically [sic] taboo and tacitly elided within avant-garde circles."
