5 Assignment 03

Much like Angela Davis, Silvia Frederic takes us on a journey of capitalization, imperialism and land privatization. Silvia illustrates that women suffer the most from land privatization that occurred because of capitalization. Due to this economical destruction, women’s moral status within society was reduced. In contrast to this statistic, we can incorporate Silvia studies within society. We still observe these patterns of the past being integrated into the present. For instance, women are still the domestic workers in the home while the husband ventures out to work in order to provide for the family. This continues to be a norm in South America, the Caribbean and eastern countries like India. Due to this imbalance women are highly dependent on their husband’s salary in order to take care of the home and family. This position makes the husband superior/ bread winner in the home. Consequently, he makes all important decisions with regards to the household affairs and is also responsible for setting and enforcing rules.
Conversely, Silvia portrays this ideology of the past by establishing how social structures affect the lives of women and why this problem continues to surface. She points out that land privatization caused this problem. During the 15th century, Europe was once controlled by a feudal system. With this system, peasants were given land for their cooperation during war. Within the peasant society they lived comfortably and happy. They had their own governor/chiefs who made the decision as to when to harvest the crops, which location was best for cultivation due to the untimely and harsh weather. In addition, because civilians did their own work, they established their own resting days. It was also a system of self-reliance hence they profited from their hard labor. After the decline of the feudal system, many women lost their jobs as breeders or industrial workers. Their jobs became redundant. Additionally, during this time finding jobs for women was a difficult task. It was quite evident that men were readily hired to do laborious jobs as opposed to women. Nevertheless, this depression subjugated women to become prostitutes, robbers or borrow as a means of survival. Another event that escalated during land privatization is that many women fought back to keep their land from expropriation. Many removed hedges and levelled the ditches but were later imprisoned for their actions. During these times women felt the brunt of the depression simply because they were vulnerable. They lived through the abuse from men and sometimes became vagabonds or nomadic. Many women were pregnant and couldn’t partake in migration while carrying their children.
Similarly, land privatization also affected women through broken family ties, communal cultivation and cultural aspect. Many were left alone to fend for themselves. During this era man left the women while they went out to fend themselves. Consequently, capitalization increased, there was a surge in unemployment among women. Providing that they didn’t have any sources of income, many became homeless and lived in shelters. The economic issue forced women to become domestic workers and totally dependent on their husband’s meager salary. Many suffered abuse from their husbands and couldn’t escape the ill treatment because of the lack of employment. Also, if they resisted the treatment they were forced to face the street. Their only source of income came with tragic conditions. Finally, land privatization affected women lives because many were deemed as witches over a simple misunderstanding. Thus, many women were prosecuted and hang. This stigma further downgraded the rank of women within society along with creating misogamy. We can relate to the authors ideology because there is still impoverishment and inequality among women today.