å Saturday, March 11th, 2017

Silvia Federici, in The Caliban and the Witch, puts forth a compelling argument in which capitalism depends on and enforces sexism. Imposing the separation of the public and private sphere, starting with common land being privatized and resulting with women losing control over their bodies and being legally infantilized, capitalism requires the subjugation of women to succeed. We will first look at the loss of the commons and the resulting loss of economy and agency for women.

Federici argues that women were more dependent on the commons than men were, not only for economy but also their social life. Prior to land being privatized, women worked alongside men tending to land and were able to sustain themselves through their labor. Additionally, the commons were used for women to socialize in a safe space with one another. Once land was privatized, women were relegated to the home, isolated from one another, and had no access to wages. This resulted in chronic poverty and dependence on men for their economic well-being. This is not to say that the privatization of the commons and move to wage earning was without hardship for men. The value of labor was so little it led to devastating poverty, which in turn led to a reduction in population as families that could not feed themselves were no longer having children. To counter the fall in population, women’s bodies were soon regulated, transferring control of women’s bodies from the women themselves to the state and men in general.

The state countered the stress on population size by emphasizing the importance of marriage, family, and reproduction. As a result, women’s bodies were highly regulated. Abortion and birth control were outlawed and demonized and the priority of the fetus took precedence over the life of the mother. In some countries, providing housing for unwed mothers was illegal.   Mid-wives, neighbors, and family members were reduced to spies, reporting ‘suspicious’ activity to the government: women entertaining men in the home, walking about by themselves, suspected sexual activity without the goal or procreating. Women were required to register their pregnancies and faced death should an unregistered pregnancy result in death for the infant prior to being baptized. Women were reduced to their role in procreating and lost all sense of agency.

Centuries later, we still find ourselves fighting for the same rights. The advent of capitalism devalued women’s labor, particularly labor performed in the home, and criminalized women’s bodies. Understanding Federici’s argument that capitalism requires on the subjugation of women, we cannot help but wonder if we will ever have fully equal rights under a capitalist system.

In The Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici, she begins saying how in Europe land privatization was the beginning of the Capitalism. In the 16th century, for example, European merchant got land from the Canary Islands to convert this land in a sugar plantation giving to Europe an easy way to increase their wealth.

After reading this chapter it is clear that the degradation of women that Federici refers is the treatment women had during this period of transition to a Capitalism. The state felt it was the owners of the women body. Since the beginning, there was a sexual division of labor making women more dependent on men. For example, the state and the people who hired women to do any kind of labor established the wage based on men’s labor. As a result, women’s wage was lower and they still had to dependent on men all the time(Pg. 75). From this unpaid labor or not equal wage the State was able to get more wealth.

As the book mentions the reduction of wage affected not just men who had to work more and get less money but also affected women’s wage in a tremendous way. “In the 14th century, they had received the half pay of a man for the same task; but by the mid-16th century, they were receiving only one-third of the reduced male wage” (pg. 77). This reduction in wages caused several women to choose prostitution as a way to earn money and support their families.  Of course, this was another way to minimize women since prostitution was not considered as a job.

Something that surprised me to read was how women were judged and punished if something happened to their children. During the  16th and 17th century there were forms of surveillance for women during pregnancy and maternity. If for some reason the baby was born dead or died during childbirth the only guilty person was the mother. This was considered  infanticide and  the mother had to receive a punishment as be executed.(Pg.88)

In this chapter by Silvia Federici, we found how women’s bodies were controlled by the State. Women were considered machines that only served to work and as the author mentions “produce children for the state” (Pg.92). Women could not have any important employment and there were forced to get jobs as domestic servants, farmhands, spinners, knitters and even all these occupations were considered not important and not “productive”.

Finally, because there were no jobs prostitution became a form women used to survive and this was also judged with punishments, for example in Madri if a woman was in the prostitution she could receive a hundred lashes (pg.94).