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Assignment 04

In Silvia Frederici’s, The Caliban and the Witch, she discusses the degradation of women. Women were seen as inferior to men and only seen as wives and ways to reproduce. While women did an assortment of jobs, it was seen as housekeeping or helping the man. Any women who were opposed to this and rioted were quickly arrested.

Since women were paid much less than men, they had little choice but to get married to and rely on men. This, in turn, led to them getting forced into a housewife position and later on, expected to have children and take care of them which took away a lot of their power and freedom. The growth of mercantilism also was a big factor as to why the population needed to grow via women.

Women also began to have little control over their body and childbirth. Many women were expected to get pregnant and keep the children because in the end, it would mean more men to potentially work. This also restricted their work options because since they had to take care of children, they weren’t able to do certain jobs such as production or traveling. Unfortunately, if women were not able to reproduce or were simply uncooperative, they were seen as witches.

All in all, women were degraded in many ways. Whether it was being seen as inferior to men, being paid less and therefore getting stuck in housewife roles or having no control over pregnancy and giving birth, they had little power in this time period and if they tried to rebel, they were put down and further degraded.