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Assignment 02

In Silvia Federici’s book “Caliban and the Witch: Women, The Body and Primitive Accumulation ,” Federici explains the consequences of land privatization in Europe in the late 1500’s. In this chapter, “The Accumulation of Labor and the Degradation of Women”, Federici lists several events that relate to the history of degradation that women have received. In “The Devaluation of Women’s Labour ” women lost the opportunity to work through land privatization and a commercial agriculture. (67) In the late 15th century capitalist merchants employed women for a lower wage than men. This increased the profit for merchants and caused businesses to compete. Businesses who were not in favor of this socio-economic change protested and petitioned the employment of women. They even pushed to limit women to their households. A result of the loss of employment to women resulted in the rise of prostitution. (67) This event in this chapter represents the beginning of the degradation of women. Women’s independence was stripped from them as employment was barred. They were confined to the daily tasks and ideology of a domestic house wife. Restraining women and ranking them below white men made them inferior. Through the limiting of women economically merchants were able to keep their businesses afloat, constructing a new career for women that would last for centuries. However the aftermath of these decisions display a more vivid picture of the degradation of women. (90) The rise of prostitution in Europe showed the strict nature of white men towards women. Unlike the Middle Ages which prostitution was normalized, harlotry was banned and met with harsh punishments. Women were flogged, imprisoned, banished, ridicule, etc. Sexually assaulting prostitutes were reoccurring and met with little or no care. Prostitutes were even considered witches and whores. This consequence caused by the failure of adaption of women laborers was met with a demeaning response. This again points to the harsh nature of white men in the late 15th century, the degradation of women due to land privatization, and the idea that women were no longer in authority of their autonomy as Federici states. (113)