I’m reading a wonderful book called Caliban and the Witch, by Silvia Federici. Its central point is a link she makes between the definition of women’s roles as domestic/private and capitalism. It’s a point I don’t 100% ‘buy’; but she marshals a considerable array of information to bolster her claim. Beginning in Europe (which of course is part of the problem with the argument—there was already oppression of women before capitalism arrived in other parts of the world), she traces the growth of capitalism, and linked changes in the roles of both men and women, in a thorough and fairly equitable manner. She shows how ‘the common man’ became oppressed by the wage labour system; and then how women’s roles evolved toward domesticity and societal reproduction—to women’s distinct disadvantage—as well. I’m just getting to the chapter on witches, which is foreshadowed as a crucial part of her argument. The book is very fully referenced, with wood block prints and other arts of the various times graphically demonstrating her points. It’s a fascinating read.
But it brings to mind my discomfort with Marxist analyses (and I should acknowledge right away that I have never read Das Kapital, though I’ve read abundant writings that purport to build on Marx’s analyses). One issue that troubles me is that capitalism as the big bad wolf is kind of inaccessible as we try to think of ways to solve problems, to address particular issues in particular places now. I remember an exciting and eye-opening class I took in 1970, after my general doctoral orals. I was sick and tired of studying anthropology and took a class advertised as ‘literature’. It turned out to be a class in Marxism, in revolution. Now I grew up in a period when Communism was a serious bugaboo (in the same category, socially and politically in the US, as capitalism is/was for Marxists or…better yet…terrorism today). I had really never been exposed to any serious attention to Marx’s ideas or those of his adherents. So I genuinely learned more in that class, probably than in any other class I’ve ever taken. I learned to imagine a completely different way of looking at the world. But I have never fully gotten over my dissatisfaction with it as the explanation for everything—though many Marxist insights are more appealing, more explanatory than the conventional western economic interpretations with their own equally (or more) fatal flaws (‘information equally available to all’, people seen only as ‘rational actors’, the market as ‘the great equalizer’, money as the be-all and end-all of people’s needs/wants).
Another troubling feature of Marxist analysis though is that it seems to reduce the points of entry, the possible ways to stimulate some kind of benign change. Although I see the rationale, the cohesiveness of much work labeled as Marxist—certainly many Marxist authors put forth arguments that make a lot of sense—I’m still uncomfortable with the monolithic nature of the proposed explanations. I have difficulty seeing capitalism as the kind of bête noire, responsible for all the world’s evils, that many adherents seem to accept so easily. I also see that the human condition has improved over time in many places (even with capitalism). In my own work, I’ve tried re-analyzing material that I’ve described in terms of cultural difference, in terms of class. It’s quite possible to do it, but I come away feeling that my interpretations based on different perceptions of reality, different values, and related different goals in life are much richer, more useful and reflective of what I’ve seen than my attempts to squeeze the data into a Marxist framework. There is too much of value in local cultural variation that gets lost in the Marxist view. And such anthropological interpretations offer entrees for beneficial change—though I do recall that such change is seen by at least some Marxists as palliative, simply prolonging this miserable period before what is seen as truly needed: the revolution.
But to return to Federici, what I truly appreciate about her analysis is its emphasis on how women came to be defined as responsible for performing all things domestic. Whether or not one accepts her interpretations, she brings needed attention to an under-studied issue. And her historical perspective provides much of value. So much of our emphasis (including my own) has been on women’s understudied and under-recognized productive roles. I’m realizing (as are others) that we need to pay some attention to those essential domestic duties so widely defined as women’s—and to figuring out how to share the reproduction of society more equitably. Women’s recognized and remunerated involvement in productive labour—for which we’ve long strived—cannot be equitably accomplished until we acknowledge the constraints currently represented by women’s greater domestic responsibilities. Such acknowledgement of course also requires doing something about it. There’s the rub.