Silvia Federici / Caliban and the Witch (2004)
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A historian argues the witch hunts were really about crushing women's medical know-how.
Who they are
Silvia Federici, a Marxist feminist historian and author of 'Caliban and the Witch' (2004).
What they do
She argues the witch trials of the late medieval and early modern era were a deliberate campaign to stamp out peasant women's knowledge of medicine and reproduction.
How it works
She frames this suppression as the work of a rising male-dominated, capitalist state.
Why it matters
In the engine she serves as the credible backing for the one solid piece of a broader (shakier) claim: that women's traditional pharmacy knowledge was targeted and suppressed.
The engine's record — word for word
Report #77. Marxist feminist historian. Argues medieval-early-modern witch trials were systematic suppression of female peasant pharmacological/reproductive knowledge by emergent patriarchal-capitalist state. Validator for Hillman's one structurally defensible claim (female-pharmacopoeia suppression).
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