Gender and Sexuality 1

You are the true Hyenas, that allure us with the fairness of your skins and when folly has brought us within your reach, you leap upon us. You are the traitors of Wisdom, the impediment to Industry… the clogs to Virtue and the goads that drive us to all vices, impiety and ruin.You are the Fool’s Paradise, the wiseman’s Plague and the Grand Error of Nature

Walter Charleton (1659): Ephesian Matron. Quotet by Silvia Federici (2004: 163).

Walter Charleton (1616-1707) was an English natural philosopher and doctor.

Time and again, women are used as scapegoats: from the biblical story in which Eve seduced Adam into taking a bite of the apple, to the witch hunts, where women were held responsible for all the social ills of the time. In this quote, women are accused, amongst other things, of driving men crazy through their sexual attractiveness. This inversion of responsibility is still used today, e.g. when a victim of sexual violence, rather than its perpetrator, is held culpable for the violence inflicted on them.

*Silvia Federici (2004): Caliban and the Witch. Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation. New York: Autonomedia.

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