Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women
Following the threads from the witch hunts in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to present-day gendered violence, Silvia Federici shows how—then as now—such oppression is not only a tool of capitalism but a critical component of it. That is, control over women’s sexuality, communication, and economic power isn’t incidental to capitalism but foundational; absent that control, capitalism cannot expand let alone hold its present territory. Written largely before the most recent surge of anti-trans and anti-abortion legislation, the essays here still speak to that present, inasmuch as they make plain the roots those current efforts have in the past. But that also reveals how much is at stake here: if capitalism depends on the subjugation of women and trans-folk, then overturning capitalism is possible only through our freedom.