å Monday, March 13th, 2017

The combination of land privatization, colonial expansion and misogyny were to blame for degradation of women. The expropriation of land occurred because of war or religion, people wanted power and once conquered, killed off majority of civilization, they moved in and took over land controlling whoever remained. Once a land was conquered by a greater force it was rare that people retaliated and succeeded. However in 1549 Robert Kett rebelled against the privatization of the land and successfully overcome an anti-enclosure fight. Kett demanded equal rights for the people, the enclosures were taken down, “The first was that ‘from hence forth no man shall enclose any more’. Other articles demanded that rents should be reduced to the rates that had prevailed sixty five years before , that ‘all freeholders and copy holders may take the profits of all common, and that ‘all bond-men may be made free, for god made all free with precious blood shedding”. Kett’s was later captured and killed. Women also fought for their rights, and tried to end enclosures, also to be seen more than property of their husbands, and reproduction machines. “And these were just a few instances of confrontation in which women holding pitchforks and scythes resisted the fencing of the land or draining of fens when their livelihood was threatened”. Women suffered terribly when the land was enclosed, most became vagabonds which in theory might have worked out for them but with the man being violent and not seeing them as equal, misogyny was on the rise. also women who became pregnant couldn’t travel from place to place as easily. In the reading there is a engraving of ‘Women and Knaves”, which is quite disturbing as t he women are following the soldiers and are muzzled like wild animals. any women who attempted to fight back or against these terrible conditions was killed. As stated, “women suffered a unique process of social degradation that was fundamental to the accumulation of capital and has remained so ever since”. Capitalism and feudalism had a negative affect on women and children; women’s bodies were seen as commodities something to profit off of, man capitalized off of their offspring. A women’s role was in the home, to maintain the house and to reproduce, this division of labor only made it worse for women they depended solely on a man to survive, and this increased the power shift that men had over women and children.

In “The Caliban and the Witch” by  Silvia Frederici, firstly points out how the transition from feudalism to capitalism; privatization of land began an extreme change, where people could not afford their living status and more, creating poverty and a major crisis among the people during the 16th and 17th century. This affected women’s in a major way, and more importantly they were degraded through the capitalism process. Allowing men to have a total control.

For instance, Frederici would argue towards the population and economic crisis, because women were a major foundation and producing children, and during the 16th century, the idea that number of people (citizens) would determine a ‘nations wealth’, a woman’s conduct and paternity were controlled. Penalties had become legal through the legal codes to women who were found guilty of committing reproductive crimes. This was highly placed on marriages, where a family would be normally created, the woman would be penalized if she took any contraception, birth controls or had any abortions and infanticide. A woman would have to register every pregnancy, and would be sentenced to death if the child died before baptism, whether she was found not guilty. The women had lost total control over her procreation process. Over all the women at this time became a tool for the reproduction of labor, work-force and seen as a natural breeding machine.

Federici would also argue on the devaluation of women’s labor in the work-force, that when it came to jobs, women were not respected enough. The Proletarian women in particular carried a low status, any work done by them was not considered actual work, it was considered “domestic work” or “housekeeping” (92). It was suggested that the woman should not work outside but inside to engage in manufacturing to “help” their husband. And although the women work was at times done for the market, she was still declined any financial recognition. And if paid, the money was not enough to live by, including that the women’s work would not be considered ‘work’ because or so because it would not fall into any ‘public relief’, in other words, public aid.

I believe the most contradicting part however was that this had led to women especially in the lower class to fall into prostitution, to avoid government capitalism, and although at some point it was legal, how can such a prostitution work force that was considered low and classless as woman be okay but the labor force women had to deal with during paternity and manufacturing labor be controlled?

Capitalism was extremely sexist and degrading.

In the Caliban and the Witch by Silvia Federici, she talks about the beginning of land privatization, which occur in Europe. She also analyzes how the progression of feudalism to capitalism took place in the and centuries, the segregation of women becoming prominent.
What caught my attention the most was how women suffered the most because man was superior and had more rights. The system was too strict and didn’t allowed women’s vote, words, or ideas. The first thing that came to mind while reading this was what we talked in class; private phase and public phase. Private phase refers to all women and it (not exactly, all white man with property) meant all women had to stay at home doing wife and mother duties. Public phase refers to “all man”, which meant they had the job and freedom to do anything they want. All of this created woman to become dependable on man and allowed capitalism took place faster because they were taking the accumulation of unpaid women labor. In my opination, the capitalism system was created and design to serve the business men man primary. The addition of women to the business industry system is fairly new, leaving women under paid compare to man and constantly fighting for equal salary is the definition of unfairness. Each reading we do in this class helps me understand how and why things happened and why they are like this now. When women were privatized it let to many problems. The outcome of this was an extremely poverty and 100% dependence on men for anything needed and more importantly economically help. Every decision made put every woman down, which let to reduction of families and women’s bodies were controlled. The state worried about the population size by emphasizing marriage, reproduction, and families’ importance. Its incredible how women were treated; they were blame for anything and had to stay quiet. Having all those laws and rules made women look for another way to survive even if it was illegal they did it. anything done by a man was considered good and productive, but something meaningless that a woman did was considered as a problem to society. In my opinion, we still fighting on equal rights. It’s unfair how women have to prove what they are capable of. Federici’s argument is that capitalism was what put completely women down. This was a very detailed and interesting reading.

The first chapter of Silvia Federici’s highly acclaimed work, The Caliban and the Witch, examines the myriad implications of the transition from a feudal system of production over to capitalism – for women, in particular. This world historic shift, which first occurred in Europe, did not take place swiftly, nor without immense – and highly organized, as Federici demonstrates – levels of resistance.

The reason for this resistance, if it can be boiled down to one thing, rested on the question of land and the autonomy – however limited – it afforded those who toiled it. Because the everyday functioning of the feudal economy depended on the peasantry and its ability to procure foodstuffs and all manner of goods from the land on which it worked, the shift over to capitalism, which required the privatization of that land, upended the way of life of the peasantry and threatened its very survival. In short, it separated them from their land which had previously allowed them to perform subsistence farming to feed and otherwise provide for themselves and, oftentimes, their lords.

The shift to capitalism meant that land became privatized. This is what Federici is describing when she talks about “enclosures” in the initial pages of the chapter. The capitalists, in order to secure the land they were essentially seizing from its previous owners (or, more accurately, toilers), put up fences around it to keep the peasants out.

For women peasants this had a specific and, according to Federici, more detrimental impact than it did on men. This is why, as Federici discusses, women played such a central role in the struggles against the privatization of land. Women (and children) as well as men worked the land under the feudal mode of production. This shouldn’t be too highly romanticized as the labor was brutally intense and a bad crop could mean starvation, disease, and death. But, the shift to capitalism forced women more and more to work inside the home (or domestic sphere) to be relegated solely to reproductive labor. That is, to reproducing the next generation of workers – literally, by birthing them, but also by taking care of and tending to all of their needs as well as their husbands. As men moved into wage-labor (as they no longer had access to their own land, they had to work for someone else on someone else’s property), women were denied entrance to this type of work and were forced either into the home or into prostitution. This complete denial of any autonomy and forced dependence on men, made women much more vulnerable to all manner of abuse.

Federici speaks of the degradation of women in relation to the capital system in the country at that time. She wanted to make a point that even though slavery or the exploitation of labor as she calls it play a big part in the formation of the country its not the only thing that has shaped the country. On page 18 she puts in a quote by Ibid saying that it is a known fact that conquest. robbery, enslavement, and murder are the pillars of making this country what it is today. Through out the text we see how the “woman “goes from having the protection of the law and her husband to leading enclosure riots and being imprisoned. She talks about how woman could no longer be employed by the army and could not support themselves properly because they were confined to reproduction labor. What ever work woman got usually did not pay and if they did pay, the pay was no where near the amount that men received. The 19th century created the start of the full time house wife s major sexual division of labor. This reduced the value of a woman greatly and the sole function was to reproduce the population. Here is when we see a major dependence increase on the man from the woman, with having nothing more to do but tend to the husband and the children and the house. This also allowed the government state and employers to regulate woman’s labor by the male wage. The separation of production and reproduction of labor reduced the income of a woman almost one hundred percent in which they were almost completely impoverished and basically poor. If you have no income you become economically dependent on those around you. In this case it was the husband who gave the woman money if he felt like doing so. Woman were being confined both physically in the home always tending to the needs of the house and to the people in the house and not only being deprived to tend to herself, any dream of wanting to become more than what she was socially like her male counter part was so far in the future she may have lost sight of that completely. She as most authors of this time speak of the acclimation of wealth through capitalism but she neglects to mention the black woman (slave woman) which most authors do too. Yes woman (white women) were reduced to reproduction labor, it was more so the slave woman who produced the labor population which was one of the reason slavery was such a successful operation. The white man could purchase a salve and have them reproduce 5- 10 children as opposed to paying for 5- 10 slaves. These are the true reproduction victims. Yes however it is true that having to be reduced to a baby making machine and nothing more is a horrible state to be in whether white or black. The common factor in both cases are the same, men.