what does International Women’s Day mean for Witches?
save your celebrations. spare me your platitudes. let’s tear down capitalism instead.
Hey Witches,
My favourite Substack writer,
, who writes , is running a book club this month. I highly recommend you check it out (and if you only subscribe to one Substack, make it his. You won’t be disappointed).This month, we’re reading Silvia Federici’s eye-opening book, “Caliban and the Witch.” I don't know whether it was a deliberate move on Rhyd’s part to host the book club during March, which also happens to be Women’s History Month (if so, well played, Rhyd), but either way, reading it has filled me with sacred feminine rage.
Hopefully, you’ll be inspired to read the book yourself (Federici published it under a creative commons licence, so you can download it for free — check the links in Rhyd’s post), but the gist is this: for capitalism to take root as a socio-economic system, violent oppression of women and control over their reproductive rights was essential (hmm, sounds familiar, right?).
Capitalism could never have worked without women’s labour being devalued in order to reproduce the workforce for free so that capitalists could begin the process of primitive accumulation described by Marx. Through primitive accumulation, early capitalists expropriated the producers (peasants) from their means of production and reproduction (the land and the female body).
Whereas Marx identified the factories as the arena of male exploitation, Federici argues that the female body became the scene of female exploitation. Additionally, the establishment of capitalism depended on the violent oppression and exploitation of colonised people, notably through the transatlantic slave trade. While Marx believed that advanced capitalist societies would no longer need to resort to this kind of violence, Federici explains why he was wrong, and why violence and oppression are a recurring necessity for the ongoing prevalence of capitalism.
Therefore, both sexism and racism are baked into capitalism. They are inseparable from it. Capitalism simply cannot exist without the ongoing oppression of women and the descendents of enslaved people and other oppressed groups. And we don’t have to look very far to see evidence of this still taking place 500 years after the birth of capitalism. Just look at the attacks on women’s reproductive rights happening around the world. Look at the brutal response of the Iranian regime towards young women who simply want to be free to dress how they want.
However, Federici goes further than Marx, arguing that ongoing social and economic divisions between men and women are necessary not only to lay the foundations of capitalism but also for it to maintain its dominance as a form of social organisation to this day. This division began in the 15th century with the widespread and state-sanctioned rape of peasant women in an effort to quash the power of heretical groups such as the Cathars and other rebels.
This brutal policy was followed by the Burning Times — the 300-year period during which an estimated 35,000-50,000 “Witches” were hunted, tried, and killed in Europe and North America. The Witch hunt was essential for sealing capitalism’s place in history. Women had been key players in the peasant uprisings that plagued the feudal lords throughout the Middle Ages, and they campaigned for a more egalitarian society. In order to regain control over the serfs, the lords had to destroy the power women held in their communities.
Women who lived alone and on the edges of society, who worked as medicine women, who held the knowledge about healing plants and remedies, who served the community, who were widowed — in other words, Witches, or anyone who could be remotely accused of being a Witch — were a threat to the ambitions of the would-be capitalists. So they set about systematically killing them and entrenching deep social divisions between men and women that would ensure the survival of the capitalist system.
It was while I was reading “Caliban and the Witch”, my feminine rage ablaze, that I found out March is Women’s History Month in the US (apparently it has been since 1987, I was just oblivious to it until now?).
It was jarring, to say the least.
Before I go on, a caveat: I am not against celebrating women’s history or their contributions to society. Many women — especially women of colour — have been written out of history, and they deserve to be recognised.
At the same time, we have to admit that the achievements of many great men would not have been possible without the unpaid labour of women. Take Stephen Hawking, for example. His ex-wife, Jane, a talented physicist in her own right, stepped back from her career to be her disabled husband’s full-time carer while single-handedly raising their kids — giving Stephen the possibility to pursue his career and become the most revered scientist of the late twentieth century.
Jane Hawking has been vocal in her criticism of the film about their life, the Theory of Everything, which conveniently leaves out the exhausting physical and emotional labour she carried out during her marriage to Stephen. In a slight that will be familiar to women everywhere, her work in the home was not deemed valuable enough to be screen-worthy.
The Hawkings’ marital dynamics are the rule, not the exception. Think about the feminist slogan, “behind every great man stands a great woman.” This truism belies the power dynamics that make both capitalism and male dominance over women possible.
So when Biden, president of the world’s stronghold of capitalism and capitalist ideals says, “despite significant progress, women and girls continue to face systemic barriers to full and equal participation in our economy and society,” I’m like…well, duh. As long as there is capitalism, there will be systemic barriers for women (and Black and brown people).
To me, Women’s History Month and International Women’s Day are empty platitudes. These initiatives pay lip service to ending women’s oppression without actually, you know…doing anything about ending it.
While the media is harping on about celebrating all things female, it simultaneously continues to demean and belittle women — and Witches. Case in point: Emily Kohrs, the jury foreperson in the Trump election fraud investigation, who gave a series of unfortunate and unprompted TV interviews.
Don’t get me wrong, Kohrs made various errors of judgement that probably merit criticism. But the media decided to focus on her appearance (Kohrs is 30 but looks young for her age, something that I empathise with — it can be very frustrating to not be taken seriously as a woman/person because of your physical appearance) and…her interest in Witchcraft.
The New York Post described Kohrs as “bonkers” for sharing Witchcraft content with her 200-odd Pinterest followers, proving that the Witch hunt is alive and well in the twenty-first century. While other criticisms of Kohrs may well be valid, portraying her as unstable is a centuries-old tactic for undermining women.
So this Women’s History Month, I’m nursing my Witch wound and asking myself what it means to be both a woman and a Witch at this time in history.
The conclusion I came to is that being a Witch is about resisting the systems of oppression that promise freedom but keep us trapped.
We must resist by reclaiming our rightful connection to the land, protecting our reproductive rights, and salvaging the pre-capitalist ideals of our medieval ancestors who aspired to a fair and egalitarian society. We must become aware of the ways capitalism shapes our values and desires and become more conscious consumers. We must form alternative communities and forms of social organisation based on the values of respect for people and nature.
Reading Caliban and the Witch has opened my eyes to what I suspected all along — that as long as there is capitalism, women will never be free. Women will never be equal. And Witches will continue to be persecuted.
So this Women’s History Month, save your celebrations, spare me your platitudes — and let’s tear down capitalism instead.
I would love to know what you think of Women’s History Month and what it means for women and Witches — let me know in the comments.
Well said, Victoria! We need more voices like yours in the world and I admire your bravery! Late stages of capitalism, is what I say... burn it down!