Assignment 06 – Federici Piece
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.
