Caliban and the Witch
Ben Bradley
Silvia Federici’s, Caliban and the Witch: Capitalism, Witch-Hunts, and the Possession of the Female Body
If you’re curious about this, we’ve got an extended version of this article.
How have feminists viewed the body? Well, probably in quite a few ways given the diversity of the feminist movement. One particularly hot-take is Silvia Federici’s. Outlined in her book, Caliban and the Witch, Federici’s account involves witch-hunts, magic, machines, Capitalism and population decline.
In Caliban and the Witch, Federici argues that the body was stolen by Capitalism throughout the 14th-18th centuries, focusing on Europe and European Colonialism, for the purpose of accruing profit and power. And it had a special role reserved for the female body: to be a breeding machine to produce more workers. Federici argues that this can explain a lot of our gender ideals and treatments of the body today. (It’s worth noting here that Federici’s argument concerns how Capitalism created its own femininity based on female reproductive organs; it is not an argument saying that to be a woman it is essential to have such biological capacities.
In this article, we’re going to have a look at all of this in a little more detail. We’ll start by looking at something called “primitive accumulation”, and tie this into Capitalism’s need to possess the female body. We’ll then take a closer look at how this was achieved, honing in on the role of the witch hunts. Finally, we’ll look at the consequences of this: what Federici thinks this means for the body today.
Why Steal the Body? Primitive Accumulation Introduction
So how does Federici think the female body was turned into a machine for reproducing workers? First, the idea that the female body is a meek, submissive reproductive machine wasn’t learnt easily. Capitalism had to force people into believing it. This happened through the sophisticated and violent witch-hunts (more on this later). However, to understand why Capitalism wanted to possess the female body at all, we need to first look at a process called ‘Primitive Accumulation’. Possession of the female body was, according to Federici, one instance of this more general process.
Karl Marx and Silvia Federici
Primitive accumulation, coined by Marx, is just a fancy way of saying that Capitalism violently stole or accumulated things in order to give it a chance of establishing itself. It stole human bodies, resources and land. This took place during the 15th-18th centuries of Capitalism’s initial growth, a necessary pre-condition for it to become the dominant political and economic system. Federici builds on the definition of primitive accumulation as an accumulation of workers and capital, and says it was also an accumulation of divisions and hierarchies along lines of gender, race and age. These were created as a means by which slavery and the possession of women’s bodies could be justified, and therefore a way of justifying the practices of primitive accumulation.
How though, does this relate to the possession of the female body - and with it, the capitalist justification for sexism? In other words, why would Capitalism need to possess female bodies in particular, and create rigid boundaries around gender?
Well, Federici argues that before the industrial revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries, the human body was the most effective machine for labouring in fields and making sellable goods and services. More workers meant more labour which meant more profit. The state also sought more power and control, and so needed larger armies for larger invasions of foreign lands. To achieve this, they needed more military workers (or soldiers). Federici argues that, to this end, Capitalism sought to possess and exploit the female body, since the female body could be used to produce more births. More births would result in more productive people, more profit, and more power and wealth for the ruling classes. This was made more urgent due to the population declines of the 16th and 17th centuries.
The Witch-Hunts: How Capitalism stole the Female Body
So now we have an idea of Federici’s argument for the Capitalist motivation to turn the female body into a reproductive vessel: population declines, and a need for more workers and soldiers. And we can see that it happened in the context of Primitive Accumulation.
The question now, is: how does Federici argue that Capitalism actually achieved this? In other words, how did it create these gendered divisions and hierarchies, and capture female bodies to turn them into breeding machines? Answer: The witch-hunts!
Even if misogyny and patriarchy still existed pre-Capitalism, the women of Europe, Federici argues, generally still had control over their bodies and over their reproductive capacities. The rising Capitalist state sought to break this control, and women were not going to lie down and submit. And why would they? What would be in it for women?
Federici argues that Capitalism, by its nature violent, decided the most effective way to turn women into breeding machines would be through the violent witch-hunts. That is, by ostracising and persecuting women who refused to reproduce just because the state and man commanded it so.
What Happened in the Witch-Hunts?
From the 15th century, the number of state-backed witch-hunts in Europe exploded, with hundreds of thousands of women between the 15th-17th centuries being killed and tortured in Europe. With witch-hunts, the state effectively criminalised birth control, and decreed that the uterus belonged to the public, rather than to the individual person. The threat of being burnt at the stake, as was so common during witch-trials, struck fear into the hearts of anyone who dared to resist Capitalism’s encroachment upon the human body.
Witch trial in Salem, Massachusetts, lithograph by George H. Walker, 1892.
Salem witch trials, illustration from Pioneers in the Settlement of America by William A. Crafts, 1876.
The accusations of witch-craft centred around infanticide, abortion, non-monogamous sexuality, and contraception. Why else was it mainly women who were tried, tortured, burned alive or hanged, accused of having sold body and soul to the devil and, by magical means, murdered scores of children, sucked their blood, made potions with their flesh, and performed many other abominations? (p.182). (Does a stereotype of the lecherous old woman, hostile to new life, who captures and eats the flesh of children, remind you of any children’s stories? These were popularised during the rise of the witch-hunts).
Federici argues that it was sophisticated propaganda to capture the female body, kill it, and turn it into a breeding machine. Women were under surveillance by the state to ensure that they did as they were told (make more babies). Female midwives were ordered to leave the bed where the mother was giving birth, and medical experts, usually men, replaced them. Any women that resisted (deciding that actually they did not want to become a vessel for reproducing Capitalism’s workers and soldiers), were duly accused of witch-craft. In this way, Federici argues that Capitalism sought (and gained) possession of the female body, turning it into a machine which could be manipulated and used to achieve its ends.
Consequences Today
For Federici, the witch-hunts were incredibly successful in achieving Capitalism’s goal of possessing the female body: it was on the stake where witches perished that the bourgeois ideals of womanhood and domesticity were forged (p.202). We now live with the consequences of the ‘ideal’ woman as a heterosexual, tame virgin, ready to produce babies for their husband and for society.
Of course, with 20th century feminism’s achievements, women now have more control over their bodies, with abortion and contraception widely accepted (though we may worry that this acceptance is once again being lost). Nonetheless, Federici holds that to a large extent the ingrained idea of what it is to be a ‘woman’, and certainly to be a “good” woman, has spread through society, such that it now goes unquestioned. Think of the ideals of women as virginal and pure, and the common trope of associating sexual women with magic and demons. Or, think of the common understanding of women as carers – unequal parental leave being a prime example.
Nowadays we associate witches with silly cackling women on broomsticks. But there is a reason this is the case. If everyone understood Federici’s analysis of witch-hunts, then perhaps we would be in solidarity with witches: we would understand their tarnished reputation as part of Capitalism’s scheme to steal peoples’ bodies for their own ends. It is our job to question such stereotypes, interrogate them, and gain the freedom to unite and own our bodies and our souls. We are our bodies, we decide what we do with them, and we decide how we use them. Let’s be witches!
Silvia Federici
Silvia Federici is a well-known Marxist feminist, and a really influential figure in thinking around anti-capitalist feminism. She was influentially involved in the Wages for Housework campaign, and as you’ll have read in this article, wrote the book Caliban and the Witch.
Verso Books invited reflections from activists, writers, and scholars to discuss the provocations of Federici’s arguments on capitalism and colonialism, bodies and reproduction, race and slavery—and the powerful figure of the witch. Check out the collection!
Ben Bradley
London-based Ben graduated from the University of Manchester in Italian and Arabic, and then worked as a primary school teacher. He now works for the civil service in between reading anthropological and feminist theory. His piece on the female body is his first published article.
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