there is nothing tragic in the
the logic of being moss
perhaps the mouth goes dry
maybe your vocabulary
slips, but
the green is no longer just a color
your mouth is no longer dry and you spout words as if
your dictionary is on fire –
what is tragic is the logic of
the nongreen wage, the math of
the unfed mouth – what goes
dry is the unsaid word,
the less than word, the feet that
knew no ground no wall but wail
this unfed mouth is word now
that soots your green with rage –
—
These historic changes – that peaked in the 19th century with the creation of the full-time housewife – redefined women’s position in society and in relation to men. The sexual division of labor that emerged from it not only fixed women to reproductive work, but increased their dependence on men, enabling the state and employers to use the male wage as a means to command women’s labor. In this way, the separation of commodity production from the reproduction of labor-power also made possible the development of a specifically capitalist use of the wage and of the markets as means for the accumulation of unpaid labor.
– Silvia Federici, “Caliban and the Witch”
