Capitalism’s Favorite Tool: The Woman

The implications of capitalism on the persistent social struggle, sexism, remain relevant today. With the perpetuation of sexism, a true egalitarian society will remain unattainable. To attempt to resolve sexism, it must be understood. To do this, an analysis of the history of capitalism, sexism and the sexual divisions of labor must be undertaken. A closer look reveals that capitalism only becomes a reigning ideology by oppressing women for centuries by means of isolating her and subjugating her totally, thus making her capitalism’s greatest facilitator.

Credit should be given to the class struggles that plagued feudal Europe for the birth of capitalism. In her account, Caliban and the Witch, Federici notes that this birth of capitalism represents the need for patrician merchants, feudal lords and the clergy to extend their control of property and economic production in the face of anti-feudal struggle (Federici, 2014). During these relentless class struggles, peasants fought for and exercised new rights that came with serfdom. They protested against unfair taxes, bargained their labor services and threatened to flee to the “bushes” where maroon communities were forming (Federici, 2014). As a counter-revolutionary response, the very violent change from feudalism to capitalism was imposed. Noblemen found new ways to exploit the poor. With the growing influence of money, serfdom ceased and peasants increasingly sold their labor, unwittingly empowering the elite. Since labor power is the only commodity that can generate more value than it itself is worth, exploiting labor power to create surplus value became the new avenue for which the wealthy accumulated huge amounts of riches and power. This separation of the peasant and his means for production, becoming a wage worker, is the initial condition under which capitalism gave rise (Federici, 2014). However, in order for capitalism to lay deeper roots, several other conditions must be met. Conditions which do not prove to be progressive for women, the producers of labor power.

Capitalism, Federici wrote, could not become the prevailing ideology without European rulers expropriating land from peasants; which in turn created patriarchal hierarchies of work between men, women and their children, thus creating the “housewife” (Federici, 2014). European land privatization took various forms, including the increase of rent, the exponential growth of state taxation, and tenant evictions. These resulted in the criminalization of peasants, along with mass pauperization (Federici, 2014). These, in combination with the increase of waged work, would set the stage for expelling men from the household.

Maria Dalla Costa’s Women and The Subversion of the Community brilliantly points out that the expulsion of men from the household birthed a new sex hierarchy, naming men the head of the home. Women, children and those that were not able-bodied were therefore reliant on men, giving men social and political dominance (Dalla Costa, 2019). Capital later excluded children from the home by means of schooling. An attempt to prevent children from getting in the way of those who more directly contributed to capitalistic agendas, men and women (Dalla Costa, 2019). The woman, by herself, is trapped in the home. Her capacity to procreate is used against her. She is made to raise and discipline future labor power, and at the same time support her husband, the current labor power, by means of housework. What is most perverse about this sexual division of labor is that its nature is ambiguous. Where the woman is concerned, her roles are limited to personal service that is considered unskilled. Her social contributions were not obvious since the only visible product of her work was the laborer (Dalla Costa, 2019). When considering the crucial role women play in producing labor power, it becomes clear why she became the target of extreme capitalistic oppression.

Oppressing women became vital for cementing the rise of a capitalistic regime. Women were redefined in crude terms and had their social, physical and sexual autonomy striped away. The very nature of what it means to be a woman was redefined, reduced and recklessly perpetuated. Capitalists relentlessly measured women by the sum of what they would accomplish in the home. She was characterized by her sexual and nurturing capabilities. In her essays, Women and Capitalism: Dialectics of Oppression and Liberation, Angela Davis wrote that women were portrayed as the embodiment of nature, and that they were designed for and destined to deliver children for men, and as such have a psychological, biological and ethical obligation to take care of the seeds of men (Davis, 1998). These portrayals, in conjunction with her isolation to the family cell, relegated her to social incompetence. She was cut off from socialized production, social knowledge and social education (Dalla Costa, 2019). The arbiters of capital went further. The total subjugation of women was necessary in order to realize the full potential of capitalism. Women’s bodies were also at risk.

Following the population crisis of the 16th and 17th centuries, “the colonizers' dream of having an infinite supply of labor was dashed” (Federici, 2014). Reproduction and population growth became state matters, such that any acts that obstructed population growth were severely punished. It was under this guise that the Great Witch Hunt hid. In other words, the conduct of women became a growing concern among rich aristocrats. This led to women ultimately losing their reproductive rights and, in frequent cases, their lives (Federici, 2014). The rate at which women’s physical integrity was stunted was unprecedented. (Dalla Costa, 2019). She was completely dismantled, from uterus to mind. In their isolation, women were not only robbed of the opportunity to develop their creative capacity, they were also swindled out of a healthy sex life. They were so reduced to being a tool for reproducing labor power that “women themselves became the commons” (Federici, 2014).

With the commodification of labor and the expropriation of surplus labor time, at the end of the feudal era, Capitalism emerged. However, in order for capitalism to endure, other specific conditions needed to exist. In order to harness an infinite amount of labor power, without sparing any effort, capitalists waged a war on women that would subjugate them completely for centuries. Peasant land was expropriated, a sexual division of labor was employed and women met extreme forms of physical and mental oppression. Women presented as prime bait for facilitating capitalism because of the nature in which their subjugation would take place, being that her oppression would not be easily identifiable. Not only did women produce the most valuable commodity, labor power, she would not be paid for it. “This exploitation has been even more effective because the lack of wage hides it” (Dalla Costa, 2019). Her naturalized efforts served as another method for disguising her struggles. Characterizing her as the embodiment of nature with exceptional child rearing capabilities is a false exaltation to justify capitalistic agendas. Women are no closer to nature than men (Davis, 1998). The social incompetence that her isolation afforded her watered the the seeds of confidence in capitalism. The wealthy presumed she was incapable of organizing socially and revolting. Furthermore, as a result of the sexual divisions of labor, it would prove difficult for women to organize against the very men that she needed and produced, the wage worker. In conclusion, women can be seen as capitalism’s favorite tool since they produced the commodity necessary for its development; they were not paid for this production; they were exploited in such a way that they could not lay charges against it, since their abuse was not easily identifiable and it was outside of their social reach. With this understanding, one can tackle capitalism and sexism more productively in their feat for a more egalitarian society.