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michael li assignment 4

Industrialization caused a rise in the demand for labor. Women have been exploited for their labor in the oppression that resulted in the capitalistic wage system. Federici discusses the advent of the full-time housewife whose image and role in society seem to be institutionalized in order to exploit their ability to produce children and replenish the labor force. The exploitation of women is the product of a male controlled wage system in which women were separated from. This increased their dependence on men therefore they were molded into their limited roles as housewives that birthed, and mothered children without any recognition, or reward.

The exploitation of reproductive labor seems to have been catalyzed the creation of the housewife role, but ideas of molding women into such an image had been apparent throughout history. Morgan discusses how traveling men viewed women from around the world. Through their lens, they also generalize cultures. This is concept is critical in understanding how the exploitation of women is rationalized.

As fascinated as they were, European travelers found the appearance and behavior of women barbaric. Women body parts were not an exhaustive topic. The ongoing analysis of animalistic breasts does also happen to appropriately follow the topic of giving birth. Writers emphasized how astonishingly high the rate of birth was as well as how public they were. Their ability to reproduce seemed to be far greater than that of a their European counterparts, yet they were still viewed as being barbaric.

Through observing women, these seemingly uncontrolled family structures of these different cultures were at constant discord with what Europeans considered civilized life. Between Morgan and Federici, the reproductive labor of women had been exploited due to both capitalism and years of rationalizing that their oppression of women in the home is appropriate in the context of civil life.