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Assignment 04 Federici & Morgan: Labor

Throughout history the black woman has been depicted as a strong able woman who could endure laborious hours as oppose to her white counterpart. This is portrayed in both Morgan’s and Federici’s works. Morgan describes European settlers traveling to Africa and describing the women with breasts hanging below their Navels  (Morgan, 1997:14). In the European’s perspective, the women’s hanging breasts predetermined them to a life of labor. This narrative was used to justify their enslavement, as they were seen as inferior and could only be used to benefit the white man’s growing authority in the capitalistic society. The black woman’s physical characteristics were used again and again to predispose them to labor. This ideology was later turned widespread as their beliefs were published in dozens of pieces of literature. Federici’s publication focuses more so on the troubles women faced due to limitations. Prior to land privatization women were able to fend for themselves alongside their male counterparts. After the creation of land enclosures women were not able to compare themselves to men. It limited women to domestic labors such as cooking, cleaning and caring for. Reproductive work was paid, for limited time, at low costs. Throughout the years reproductive labor was no longer compensated in capital but was expected and became a “natural vocation” (Federici, 2004:86). Although Federici focused her piece on the European woman of the sixteen hundreds the degradation resembled that of the African woman during the Exploration era. In Europe the men had control over women’s reproduction, they were able to regulate their capital and image. The woman was yet again diminished into a second class citizen, who was forced to settle with the limits put upon them. European women were not in control of their socioeconomic state in the growing capitalistic world. The African women was limited to image fixed upon them as they were seen as masculine meaning they could endure both manual labor and reproductive labor. Both the European and African women were seen as inferior to the white man and were exposed to labors that European men dictated.