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Silvia Federici

Economic and political conditions caused many changes in women’s lives since they were often not thought of causing problems to arise in their everyday lives. Since women were never considered in anything it showed how much they were degraded through many decades. In the 17th century after the transition to capitalism caused prices to rise causing inflationary.At the same time wages were collapsing endangering many people, mostly women. People began to fight this by protesting and getting violent, known as the price revolution. Women were mostly affected by the conditions because they didn’t have easy access to money and men would easily take their jobs (Federici 92). Women were actually more concerned with difficultly to obtain food because they were the ones in charge of feeding their families making them feel responsible. This created a feeling of guilt that caused many women to protest. There were instances in which some of the riots consisted of only women. The price of food was so expensive that it had gone up eight times while the people’s wages had only gone up three times, barely keeping up and causing starvation (Hackett Fischer 1996:74, Ferderici 86). Women would see their children die of starvation and over time became violent. Women usually have that strong connection with their children where they would do anything to protect them. Federici told how in desperate times like this women and men came together to ambush food carts and steal sacks of food. Desperate times showed how it was the only time when men would team up with women because they were suffering too, but if it was only women not much would change. Diets were also very poor consisting of mainly bread and not much else. Food became such a big concern that many were believed to do dark ceremonies in attempts to get food. Food was so scarce and it is unbelievable that many women who didn’t have jobs or good pay survived.