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The Caliban and the Witch

In the Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federichi explains that the sexual division of labor was used as a capitalist tool for accumulating wealth and preserving power among white men. Being women was a disadvantage for this time because gender became a decisive factor of class relations. The mere fact of being a woman gave the right to their bosses to pay them less money than the men for their work. Prostitution, servitude and housewives became the exclusive labors for women. For example, women were not able to become soldiers for pay; instead some joined armies as cooks and other positions related to their gender.

With the development of capitalism the reproductive labor was devaluated at a point that women need men to survive. Women had a very hard time getting monetary resources, therefor having commodities, such as food, almost impossible to obtain leaving them with no options but to get undervalue goods. Economy growth helped out the nations wealthiest, but leaving the poor in a more critical state than what they already had. Small business like food supplier had their goods bought by the rich with no problem but women had no other options but to beg on streets or in storefronts. Women had no means of getting any benefit from this economy boom that was happening. Riots erupted as one could imagine and crime went up especially in the steal factor because woman often used to steal crops from their neighbors. The poor where so infuriated that they started burning property’s that belonged to the rich.

The persecutions of “witches” affected woman’s main role of reproduction and how they behave. Women had to be more careful of their actions if not they could be judged wrongly. Women reproductive function declined creating a crisis since with no reproduction no new generations were being born this lead to the creation of punishment toward woman that did not perform their role of reproduction.