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Assignment 04

In The Caliban and the Witch, author Silvia Federici believes that capitalism is keen to sexism and racism, as a social, economic system. Throughout the first chapter of her writing, she is able to describe the degradation that women face. The author talks about the exploitation of European workers, the enslavement of African Americans and Native Americans for the “New World”,  the transformation of a body to a work machine, the destruction of women’s power in not only Europe but America as well, and primitive accumulation (Federici, page 63). She puts a great amount of focus on the extermination of the “witches”, also known as the “Great Witch Hunt”, which occurred in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Silvia Federici argues that the Great Witch Hunt is one of the main reasons why it was possible to destroy the power of women in Europe, as well as America. As many would like to relate capitalist accumulation with the liberation of the workers, male and female alike, she believes you could not. Federici argues that instead capitalism has invented more savage forms of enslavement, and creates deeper divisions, especially between men and women (Federici, page 64). The merchant capitalists during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries took advantage of the cheap labor force of that time, and the “informal economy” was built from the labor of women and children, whose work did not match the low wage they received (Federici, page 72). Women also began getting themselves involved in riots, resisting against enclosure, the fencing of land and draining of fens. It was believed that they were strong and confident enough to stand up and speak up because they were technically above the law, legally “covered” by their husbands. However, the government was quick to take that privilege away and started arresting women who were involved in the riots. When their lands were lost and communities fell apart due to the enclosure, women suffered heavily. It was much harder for women to become vagabonds or migrant workers, they were less mobile because they had to take of the children or were pregnant, and the option of joining the army as a cook, washer, prostitute, etc. was taken away by the seventeenth century. It had become more difficult for them to support themselves than men and became increasingly confined to reproductive labor (Federici, page 73-74). Reproductive work continued to be paid, however at really low rates and was then even labelled as “women’s labor”. Women were not given a variety of waged occupations, and if they did happen to find one, their wage was almost nothing compared to the average male salary. These unfortunate changes redefined women’s position in society, left reproductive work as their only option, and increased their dependence on men (Federici, page 75).