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4.52 AVERAGE
4.52 AVERAGE
medium-paced
challenging
informative
medium-paced
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
informative
inspiring
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Let’s get this out of the way first and foremost: Silvia Federici is a TERF. I hear her recent works are more explicitly trans exclusionary, but even here, in this book published in 2004, her firmly cissexist worldview is apparent. And, look... I get it. Federici is a Marxist philosopher and her analysis, as such, focuses on material reality. I understand why this perspective might lead her to reject a nebulous model of identity rooted in subjectivity and social constructivism in favour of something more tangible. So, while I find her approach to gender rather lacking and overly simplistic at best, I do recognise that it’s not entirely reactionary.
It’s tricky, because gender has historically been conflated with sex. Caliban and the Witch is about gender in Early Modern Europe (predominantly England), a society which, to my knowledge, had no concept of a third gender or of transness. Sure, there were almost certainly people who we would retroactively label trans or nonbinary or genderqueer, but they wouldn’t have thought of themselves that way. Those categories didn’t exist yet, let alone the terminology, so Federici’s exclusivity is a little more defensible here than it would be in a book about gender in the 21st century, or the 20th, or perhaps the 19th. “The female body, the uterus” works well as commentary on how women were reduced to their anatomy and their supposed purpose of bearing children... until you realise that is how the author genuinely conceives (no pun intended) of womanhood.
There’s a lot more I could say about this particular aspect of her philosophy and politics, but I don’t want it to be the only thing I talk about. I took it upon myself to critique this book in good faith and, while the bioessentialism is indeed disappointing, Federici’s writing is otherwise quite thoughtful and insightful.
Caliban and the Witch is surprisingly accessible for how informative it is. It delves into primitive accumulation and the origins of capitalism, the changing role of women in society, the policing of sexuality, and the origin of “the witch” as a figure to fear and punish. It challenges the mainstream view that the witch trials came to an end because the Enlightenment’s scientific discipline triumphed over superstition, instead arguing that superstition was never the point. The Middle Ages were rife with superstition, yet no witches were burned then, and many proponents of the persecution (eg: Thomas Hobbes) didn’t believe in magic. Federici argues that the witch trials existed primarily to subjugate women, and that they came to an end because women were no longer seen as a threat to those in power. She notes similarities with Nazi ideology, which uses a contradictory combination of science and superstition as a means to an end, and with counter-terrorism, which rallies suspicion even without evidence of wrongdoing.
The book has a preface and an introduction, and each chapter has its own separate introduction as well. Together with the meandering and tangent-laden text, it makes for a slow read. It’s also quite dense in places, though the artwork did help to break it up. I often find that illustrations in academic literature don’t add much, but these Early Modern woodcuts and engravings did complement the writing well.
Would I recommend Caliban and the Witch? Yes, I think so. Perhaps it would be best to buy a second hand copy or borrow it from a library if you’re uncomfortable giving money to this particular author, but I don’t think it’s a book that ought to be avoided outright. It’s interesting, I learnt a lot from it, and I’d consider it a solid demonstration of Marxist feminism.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Death, Homophobia, Misogyny, Physical abuse, Racism, Sexism, Slavery, Torture, Violence, Blood, Antisemitism, Colonisation, Classism
Moderate: Ableism, Animal cruelty, Animal death, Body horror, Child abuse, Child death, Confinement, Domestic abuse, Genocide, Gore, Infidelity, Racial slurs, Rape, Sexual assault, Sexual content, Sexual violence, Slavery, Excrement, Medical content, Trafficking, Cannibalism, Abortion, Murder, Pregnancy, Fire/Fire injury
Minor: Incest, Infertility, Mental illness, Suicide, Transphobia, Police brutality, Islamophobia, Kidnapping, Grief, Abandonment, Alcohol, War
A fascinating book I may never have heard of except for the brief experiment that was Bitches with Bookmarks (an attempted online book club). This was our second (and probably last) book.
Anyway, it's a book about the history of capitalism, especially how it affected the role of women in society. How the costs of production -- reproduction, caring for and feeding a family -- were outsourced, how women's knowledge and wisdom was undermined and devalued, how the period of witch hunts served to collectively break the resistance of all women, and to separate them from an earlier society in which they had more respect and autonomy.
Full of ideas and contexts that hadn't occurred to me before -- this book blew my mind on a regular basis. Not a perfect book -- some arguments felt like overreaches, but considering the scope of history it's discussing, and the slimness of the volume, it packs quite a wallop.
Will definitely affect the lens through which I examine history for quite some time.
Anyway, it's a book about the history of capitalism, especially how it affected the role of women in society. How the costs of production -- reproduction, caring for and feeding a family -- were outsourced, how women's knowledge and wisdom was undermined and devalued, how the period of witch hunts served to collectively break the resistance of all women, and to separate them from an earlier society in which they had more respect and autonomy.
Full of ideas and contexts that hadn't occurred to me before -- this book blew my mind on a regular basis. Not a perfect book -- some arguments felt like overreaches, but considering the scope of history it's discussing, and the slimness of the volume, it packs quite a wallop.
Will definitely affect the lens through which I examine history for quite some time.
challenging
informative
slow-paced
read this on recommendation from a lecturer: pretty dense, but full of really interesting points. i’ve studied early modern england before but never really saw it as the ‘advent of capitalism’ until now. really interesting to see it linked to the structures imposed by european colonialism in the americas and how this links into the capitalisation on the female body. did feel at times that the book veered off onto massive tangents and the chapters weren’t really massively cohesive or contributing to a central argument: it felt at times like they were simply linked by an obligatory sentence at the start and end of each chapter, and federici only reached her main thesis by about three-quarters of the way through the book. regardless, really fascinating content in each, and really enjoyed all the pictures and diagrams too, which i felt really leant to the interpretation of the written content rather than just serving as ‘breathing space’ for the text as is sometimes the case in academic and historical texts. 3.5 stars
Content Warnings
Graphic: Misogyny
Moderate: Body horror, Genocide, Infertility, Miscarriage, Excrement, Antisemitism, Cannibalism, Abortion, Colonisation
informative
medium-paced
challenging
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Great for rethinking our understanding of the course and shape of women's rights in Europe and expanding our understanding of proletarianization & the closing of the commons, all while pointing to the implications for today.