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alexgsmith 's review for:
Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation
by Silvia Federici
Caliban and the Witch is an important Marxist feminist examination of primitive accumulation in the transition from feudalism to capitalism.
Federici argues that this process necessitated the “subjugation of women to the reproduction of the work force”, and that the witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries served to destroy women’s power and solidify the new relations of production. As racial divisions were required to enable colonialism, so too were gender divisions capitalism - women had to be treated as less-than and relegated to unpaid labour within the home to ensure the male, waged worker’s labour was consistently available to this new mode. That around this time there was a cultural shift toward consideration of the human body as a mere machine of little value, either separate from a soul or totally lacking one - of which the philosophy of Descartes and Hobbes is representative - is not coincidental.
Quite a bit is covered in this book, and I learnt quite a lot from it. I enjoyed it most when it was grounded in a strong materialist analysis, particularly the first half or so. Occasionally, it steps into more speculative territory, even exaggeration, where it’s less convincing but still interesting to think about. Other than the odd awkwardly phrased sentence here and there it was much more readable than I’d expected too; I appreciate that Federici doesn’t get caught up in an overly formal academic style and makes the content pretty accessible. Since this assumes familiarity with certain Marxist ideas I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it without some of that background, but it’s definitely a worthwhile read.
Federici argues that this process necessitated the “subjugation of women to the reproduction of the work force”, and that the witch hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries served to destroy women’s power and solidify the new relations of production. As racial divisions were required to enable colonialism, so too were gender divisions capitalism - women had to be treated as less-than and relegated to unpaid labour within the home to ensure the male, waged worker’s labour was consistently available to this new mode. That around this time there was a cultural shift toward consideration of the human body as a mere machine of little value, either separate from a soul or totally lacking one - of which the philosophy of Descartes and Hobbes is representative - is not coincidental.
Quite a bit is covered in this book, and I learnt quite a lot from it. I enjoyed it most when it was grounded in a strong materialist analysis, particularly the first half or so. Occasionally, it steps into more speculative territory, even exaggeration, where it’s less convincing but still interesting to think about. Other than the odd awkwardly phrased sentence here and there it was much more readable than I’d expected too; I appreciate that Federici doesn’t get caught up in an overly formal academic style and makes the content pretty accessible. Since this assumes familiarity with certain Marxist ideas I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it without some of that background, but it’s definitely a worthwhile read.
Just as the Enclosures expropriated the peasantry from the communal land, so the witch-hunt expropriated women from their bodies, which were thus ‘liberated’ from any impediment preventing them to function as machines for the production of labor. For the threat of the stake erected more formidable barriers around women’s bodies than were ever erected by the fencing off of the commons.