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Assignment 4

The Caliban and the Witch is interesting, but I also found it to be a difficult read.
The chapter talks about capitalism and its direct causation of sexism and oppression of people, particularly women, black people, and impoverished people.
Frederici writes about the emergence of capitalism slowly oppressing women especially because they were put into a category of “reproductive beings” with little else available. As capitalism developed taking over feudal society, women’s wages (when they were given them) were pitiful when compared with men’s. They were less mobile since they became pregnant and took care of children and their social power was slowly stripped from them. Frederici writes about their protests which initially had some protection since their husbands were responsible for them legally, but eventually they found a way to arrest women for their protests.
It seems as things progressed from feudal to capitalism societies, poorer citizens who had previously been responsible for only working the land, slowly became responsible for the costs of working the land as well. Whereas before they simply did the labor and the wealthier individuals paid for the tools, and labor, when capitalism came into play, the poor individuals were forced to buy the land they were working and they became individually responsible for a small section of land meaning they were responsible for all monetary items and such. The land became something you could own and be responsible for in a way it had never been before.
Capitalism created lower wages, especially for women, higher prices, and great inequality. Women became almost breeders and were even paid for reproduction, but at a minuscule wage.
Wars became more frequent and violent, and a terrible famine began to hit. The famine caused such extreme hunger that people turned on each other believing that poor people would sell their souls to the devil for food.