Status Updates From Caliban and the Witch: Wome...

“One precondition for capitalist development was the ‘disciplining of the body’ (Foucault) - an attempt by state and church to transform the individual’s powers into labour-power. [In 16th century Western Europe], most affected by the Protestant Reformation and the rising mercantile bourgeoisie, emerging in every field was… a reconceptualisation of Judeo-Christian themes to produce a new anthropological paradigm.”

“The criminalisation of women’s control over procreation is a phenomenon whose importance cannot be overemphasised [in] its consequences for the capitalist organisation of work… Indeed, forcing women to produce children for the state, … the banning of prostitution, and expulsion of women from the organised workplace [saw] the reconstruction of the family as the locus for the production of labour-power.”