Thinker

Silvia Federici

(1942–present) • Italian-American

Marxist Feminism Autonomist Marxism Feminist Theory

Introduction

Silvia Federici (born 1942) is an Italian-American feminist theorist, activist, and key figure in Marxist feminism whose work analyzes how capitalism depends on women’s unwaged reproductive labor—the care work, childbearing, domestic labor, and emotional work that reproduces workers daily and generationally. Her groundbreaking book Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (2004) demonstrated that capitalism’s emergence required systematic violence against women through witch hunts that disciplined female bodies, enclosed commons, and imposed new gender divisions of labor.

Federici’s central insight: capitalism doesn’t just exploit waged labor in factories but equally depends on unwaged labor in homes—cooking, cleaning, child-rearing, caring for sick and elderly. Yet this work, performed predominantly by women, is treated as “natural” women’s work rather than labor, rendered invisible and uncompensated. This isn’t accident or cultural lag but systematic feature—capitalism externalizes reproduction’s costs onto women while appropriating its products (workers).

Beyond theoretical contributions, Federici co-founded the Wages for Housework campaign (1972), demanding recognition and compensation for domestic labor. Her recent work addresses commons, feminist movements, and global capitalism’s attacks on reproductive autonomy. Federici shows that understanding capitalism requires analyzing both production and reproduction—and that feminist politics must address political economy, not just cultural recognition.

Understanding Federici is essential for social reproduction theory, contemporary feminism, and analyzing care crises, precarity, and how capitalism exploits gender. Her work demonstrates that women’s liberation requires transforming capitalism, not just achieving workplace equality.

Life and Political Development

Early Life and Education (1942-1960s)

Born 1942 in Parma, Italy, Federici experienced post-war Italy’s reconstruction and political ferment. Moving to the United States in 1967 for graduate studies at University of Buffalo, she arrived during a period of intense political mobilization—civil rights movement, anti-war protests, women’s liberation, Black Power.

This context shaped Federici’s politicization. She encountered American feminism’s emergence, participated in anti-war organizing, and engaged with Marxist theory. Yet she found both orthodox Marxism and liberal feminism inadequate—Marxism ignored gender oppression; feminism ignored class and often focused on professional women’s advancement rather than working-class women’s material conditions.

Wages for Housework Campaign (1972-1977)

In 1972, Federici co-founded the International Feminist Collective and launched the Wages for Housework campaign with Mariarosa Dalla Costa, Selma James, and others. The campaign demanded:

  1. Recognition: Housework is work—unwaged labor capital exploits
  2. Compensation: Women deserve wages for domestic labor
  3. Visibility: Making invisible labor visible challenges naturalization
  4. Power: Wages would give women economic independence

The argument: Capitalism depends absolutely on domestic labor reproducing workers daily (meals, cleaning, care) and generationally (childbearing, child-rearing). Yet this labor is:

  • Unpaid (only husband’s wage, not direct compensation)
  • Naturalized (presented as women’s natural role, not work)
  • Privatized (individual women in isolated homes)
  • Invisible (excluded from GDP, economic analysis)

By demanding wages, the campaign revealed capitalism’s dependency on unwaged women’s labor while potentially giving women economic power and independence from individual men.

Critiques and debates:

  • Would wages institutionalize rather than eliminate domestic labor division?
  • Would state/capital payment increase control over reproduction?
  • Does wage demand accept rather than challenge gendered work assignment?

Despite limitations, Wages for Housework politicized domestic labor, generated theoretical innovations, and influenced contemporary care work debates.

Nigeria and Global Perspectives (1980s-1990s)

Federici taught at University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria (1984-1986), experiencing firsthand how structural adjustment programs (SAPs) imposed by IMF/World Bank devastated Global South communities. This radicalized her understanding:

  • Neoliberal policies deliberately attacked women’s reproductive capacities
  • Commons enclosure continued globally through privatization
  • Reproductive labor’s crisis was worldwide, not just Western phenomenon
  • Global capitalism required analyzing imperialism and racial capitalism

This experience informed her analysis of how capitalism’s reproduction crisis is global, how international institutions enforce reproductive discipline, and how women’s resistance takes different forms across contexts.

Caliban and the Witch (2004)

After decades of research, Federici published Caliban and the Witch—demonstrating that capitalism’s emergence (primitive accumulation) required systematic violence against women. The witch hunts (14th-18th centuries) weren’t medieval superstition but modern capitalist disciplining of:

  • Women’s bodies (controlling reproduction, sexuality, medical knowledge)
  • Commons (enclosing common lands, eliminating subsistence autonomy)
  • Gender relations (imposing new divisions of labor, male household head)

This work established Federici as major voice in Marxist feminism, profoundly influencing contemporary feminism, social reproduction theory, and analyses of gendered violence.

Recent Work and Activism (2010s-present)

Federici continues writing and organizing on:

  • Commons: Defending and creating commons against neoliberal enclosure
  • Reproductive justice: Connecting reproductive rights to anti-capitalism
  • Global feminism: Building international feminist solidarity
  • Care work: Analyzing care crises under neoliberalism
  • Autonomous organizing: Supporting grassroots feminist movements

Major Works and Concepts

Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (2004)

Federici’s masterwork reanalyzes Marx’s primitive accumulation through feminist lens:

Primitive Accumulation as Gendered Violence: Marx described “primitive accumulation”—violent processes creating capitalism’s preconditions by separating workers from means of production (enclosures, colonialism, slavery). Federici shows this was fundamentally gendered:

  1. Witch Hunts: Systematic persecution executing thousands of women (estimates 40,000-100,000+) wasn’t superstition but:

    • Destroying women’s control over reproduction
    • Eliminating female healers, midwives, and medical practitioners
    • Terrorizing women into accepting new gender order
    • Disciplining women’s bodies and sexuality
    • Eliminating women’s commons-based autonomy

  2. Enclosures: Privatizing common lands particularly devastated women who depended on commons for subsistence—gathering fuel, food, herbs. Enclosure eliminated women’s economic independence, forcing dependency on male wage or marriage.

  3. Body Mechanization: Emerging sciences (anatomy, obstetrics) treated bodies as machines, justifying their manipulation and control. Women’s bodies particularly targeted—reproduction must be controlled, regulated, made productive for capital.

  4. New Sexual Division of Labor: Capitalism created modern gender hierarchy where:

    • Men’s work is “productive” (waged, valued, visible)
    • Women’s work is “reproductive” (unwaged, naturalized, invisible)
    • Women confined to domestic sphere under male authority
    • Reproductive labor essential but uncompensated

Class Struggle and Resistance: Pre-capitalist feudalism faced massive resistance—peasant revolts, heretical movements, women’s autonomous organizing. Capitalism emerged through defeating these movements via:

  • Military repression
  • Ideological campaigns (witch hunts, religious reformation)
  • New disciplinary institutions (workhouses, hospitals, asylums)
  • Creating new divisions (gender, race) fragmenting resistance

Global Connections: Witch hunts in Europe occurred simultaneously with:

  • Conquest and genocide of Indigenous peoples in Americas
  • African slave trade
  • Establishing racial hierarchies justifying colonial exploitation

All were interconnected—creating capitalism required destroying commons, disciplining labor, and establishing race/gender hierarchies globally.

Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle (2012)

Collection of essays spanning Federici’s career, including foundational Wages for Housework texts:

“Wages Against Housework” (1975): Classic statement arguing that demanding wages makes invisible labor visible while potentially giving women economic power. Not reformist demand but revolutionary strategy revealing capitalism’s dependency on unwaged reproduction.

Social Reproduction: Systematically developing how capitalism depends on reproducing labor-power:

  • Daily reproduction: Feeding, cleaning, emotional care enabling workers to return to work
  • Generational reproduction: Childbearing, child-rearing, education creating future workers
  • Social reproduction of non-workers: Caring for elderly, disabled, unemployed

All this work is essential yet:

  • Unpaid or underpaid
  • Naturalized as women’s biological destiny
  • Privatized in individual households
  • Excluded from value calculations
  • Treated as non-work despite being work

Crisis Tendencies: Capitalism constantly tries to reduce reproduction costs, generating crises:

  • Attacking wages reduces resources for reproduction
  • Privatizing healthcare, education, childcare shifts costs to families
  • Women’s labor market participation without socializing domestic labor creates care crises
  • Neoliberal austerity cuts social services, intensifying reproductive labor demands

Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons (2019)

Recent work connecting feminism, commons, and anti-capitalism:

Feminist Commons: Arguing for recreating commons—shared resources managed collectively outside market and state. Commons provide:

  • Alternative to capitalist privatization and state bureaucracy
  • Material basis for autonomy from wage labor
  • Spaces for collective decision-making
  • Feminist modes of relating beyond nuclear family

Care as Commons: Reimagining care work as commons rather than privatized labor:

  • Collective rather than individual responsibility
  • Democratically organized rather than imposed
  • Recognized and supported rather than invisible
  • Connecting care work across households and communities

Enclosures Continue: Analyzing contemporary enclosure forms:

  • Privatizing public services (healthcare, education, water)
  • Land grabs displacing subsistence farmers
  • Intellectual property restricting knowledge commons
  • Digital platforms appropriating social cooperation

Feminist Movements: Documenting global feminist organizing:

  • Argentinian women’s strikes
  • Italian feminist movements
  • African women defending commons
  • Reproductive justice movements

Key Theoretical Contributions

Social Reproduction Theory

Federici systematically developed social reproduction theory—analyzing capitalism’s dependency on reproducing labor-power through predominantly unwaged women’s work. This isn’t marginal to capitalism but constitutive—capitalism literally couldn’t exist without reproductive labor yet treats it as external, natural, women’s duty.

Implications:

  • Exploitation occurs in homes as much as workplaces
  • Gender oppression isn’t cultural lag but systematic capitalist requirement
  • Working class includes unwaged reproductive workers
  • Feminist struggle is class struggle
  • Reproductive crises are capitalist crises

Primitive Accumulation as Ongoing

Where Marx treated primitive accumulation as historical origin, Federici shows it’s continuous process. Capitalism constantly requires:

  • Separating people from means of subsistence
  • Enclosing commons (land, knowledge, care, water)
  • Disciplining bodies and imposing work discipline
  • Creating new divisions (gender, race) preventing solidarity

Contemporary examples:

  • Structural adjustment programs destroying Global South subsistence
  • Privatization enclosing public goods
  • Criminalization and mass incarceration as labor discipline
  • Border controls and immigration restrictions

Gendered Violence as Capitalist Necessity

Witch hunts weren’t aberration but foundational to capitalism—systematic violence establishing:

  • Male control over women’s bodies and reproduction
  • Gender hierarchy naturalizing women’s subordination
  • Terror preventing women’s autonomous organizing
  • Medical/state control over reproduction

Contemporary forms:

  • Reproductive restrictions (abortion bans, forced sterilization)
  • Violence against women maintaining patriarchal authority
  • Trafficking and sexual exploitation
  • Criminalization of sex work and reproduction

Body as Battleground

Capitalism requires controlling bodies—making them productive, disciplined, available for exploitation. Women’s bodies particularly targeted because controlling reproduction is controlling labor supply. Current struggles over reproductive rights, transgender healthcare, bodily autonomy are continuations of this battle.

Influence and Contemporary Relevance

Social Reproduction Theory Revival

Federici’s work sparked 21st-century social reproduction theory revival (Tithi Bhattacharya, Cinzia Arruzza, Nancy Fraser). Understanding capitalism now requires analyzing both production and reproduction, waged and unwaged labor.

Care Crisis Analysis

Contemporary care crises—unaffordable childcare, elder care, healthcare—analyzed through Federici’s framework. Neoliberalism externalizes reproduction costs onto families (especially women) while women’s labor force participation creates impossible double burden. Crisis reveals capitalism’s contradiction—needing reproductive labor while refusing to pay for it.

Wages for Care Work

Contemporary movements demanding compensation for care work (universal basic income, care work wages, socialized childcare) build on Wages for Housework insights.

Commons Movements

Federici’s commons work influences:

  • Defending public services against privatization
  • Community land trusts and housing commons
  • Open source software and knowledge commons
  • Mutual aid and solidarity economies
  • Reproductive justice organizing

Intersectional Feminism

Federici’s attention to race, imperialism, and Global South shaped intersectional Marxist feminism analyzing how gender, race, class, and nation intersect in global capitalism.

Reproductive Justice

Connecting reproductive rights to economic justice, anti-racism, and anti-imperialism—reproduction can’t be free without economic security, racial justice, and freedom from imperial violence.

Critiques and Debates

Essentializing Women’s Labor?

Critics worry Federici essentializes women as reproducers, potentially reinforcing gender divisions she critiques. Federici responds that analyzing capitalism’s gendered structure isn’t endorsing it but revealing it for transformation.

Wages for Housework Revisited

Debates continue:

  • Would wages institutionalize domestic labor rather than socializing it?
  • Is universal basic income better alternative?
  • Should goal be wages or eliminating gendered division of labor entirely?

Historical Accuracy

Some historians question witch hunt interpretations—were they primarily about gender or religious conflict, class control, misogyny? Federici argues these aren’t separate—witch hunts accomplished multiple capitalist goals simultaneously.

Global Applicability

Does Federici’s analysis, based primarily on Western Europe, apply globally? Federici’s Nigeria experience and attention to colonialism address this, but questions remain about different patriarchal forms and women’s labor globally.

Essential Works

Primary Texts

  • Federici, Silvia. Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. Autonomedia, 2004.
  • Federici, Silvia. Revolution at Point Zero: Housework, Reproduction, and Feminist Struggle. PM Press, 2012.
  • Federici, Silvia. Re-enchanting the World: Feminism and the Politics of the Commons. PM Press, 2019.
  • Federici, Silvia. Beyond the Periphery of the Skin: Rethinking, Remaking, and Reclaiming the Body in Contemporary Capitalism. PM Press, 2020.
  • Federici, Silvia. Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women. PM Press, 2018.

Edited Volumes

  • Federici, Silvia, and Arlen Austin, eds. The New York Wages for Housework Committee: 1972-1977. Autonomedia, 2017.

Key Essays

  • Federici, Silvia. “Wages Against Housework.” 1975.
  • Federici, Silvia. “The Reproduction of Labour Power in the Global Economy.” 2008.

See Also

Contemporary Applications