In Caliban and the witch, Silvia Federici examines how the rise of capitalism is deeply intertwined with the consolidation of patriarchy. She argues that the so-called “witch hunts” between the 15th and 17th centuries, played a fundamental role within a broader project — resulting from an alliance between the State, the economic elites and the Church — aimed at persecuting women in order to control the authority they held over their own bodies.
This coercive power, however, did not remain in the past, but it was reshaped. What once operated through laws, physical punishment, and explicit persecution now functions in more subtle and diffuse ways. Institutional authority has given way to algorithmic systems that shape behavior and desire, often aligned with the economic interests of a small, powerful elite.
Since the transition from the feudal system to the capitalist system, the female body has been used as an instrument for organizing society due to a single attribute: its reproductive character. As a way to overcome the demographic crisis caused by the bubonic plague, which wiped out a third of the European population, the State began to regulate birth rates in order to secure a larger workforce, classifying as heresy any attitude that implied exercising control over one’s own body, such as contraceptive methods, sodomy and homosexuality.
This historical panorama reveals an obscure layer of society, in which, in times of economic crisis and social insecurity, the female body and its appearance, becomes one of the most effective ways to maintain capital. For this reason, one of the pillars upon which the system is sustained lies in patriarchy.
This force, by placing women in a position of social vulnerability, where they are perceived as “fragile” and in need of “protection”, seeks to undermine female strength in order to prevent women from organizing politically. From that point, putting an end to the misogynistic structure embedded in society.
In today’s context, amid an increasingly accelerated flow of information, these forms of imposition have been reshaped. Laws, once codified, have shifted into the digital sphere; methods of punishment — such as Scold’s Bridle — once physical, have become psychological; and surveillance, previously carried out by state authorities, has turned into a system of self-surveillance. These changes highlight how the rise of the internet and industrial-technological logic has helped maintain oppressive social norms, though in more subtle ways.
The Scolds bridle. This one came from Germany in the 1600s. The iron framework goes over the head, with the ears of an ass and a bell on top. #history #womenshistory #womenshistorymonth #helpfulhistory #historicalobjects #torture #shame #scoldsbridle
The algorithms — defined as a finite series of logical instructions designed to solve a given problem — emerge as an invisible force of bodily control in the digital environment. One of the ways this control consolidates itself is through the management of “trends”, commonly understood as aesthetics, content or behaviors that gain wide reach on social media and are replicated for a certain period of time. Trends can include various fields, such as music and food, but one in particular has had a more significant impact on people’s lives: beauty trends.
With the spread of short videos featuring engaging edits, which dictate behaviors to be adopted — such as the acquisition of specific physical traits — combined with the ability of algorithms to create beauty standards, these trends shape the way individuals are perceived in a society that continues to value appearance.
There used to be feminist opposition to the ideal of shrinking women’s bodies into nothingness https://t.co/z9mG9fsAhz
In this sense, personal essence, built upon sociocultural background and social relationships, is dissolved, resulting in a process in which individuals become mere products, and physical bodies, once absorbed into the system, also come under control. As a result, the digital ecosystem acts as an amplifying instrument for concepts, ideas and behaviors that have existed not only for decades, but for centuries within the social sphere.
Women, historically placed in positions of submission by misogynistic forces in order to deny them control over their own desires and bodies, remain the primary victims of a system that prioritizes monetary gain over human well-being. Furthermore, current trends have generated a sense of self-surveillance among women on social media, in which the judgment that follows from failing to achieve a certain aesthetic ideal is no longer merely external. Instead, the resulting guilt emerges as a form of self-punishment.
The digital environment, although it emerged as a mechanism that promised meaningful change, has not escaped the control of those who hold power on a global scale. As long as a passive attitude toward this system is maintained, women’s bodies will continue to be primary targets of a historical and social project designed to create increasingly harmful tools of control over them.
come with me as I overthink homogeneity. #aesthetics #thinkpiece #beautytrends2025
The “Scold’s Bridle”, a torture device used during the Middle Ages placed inside the mouths of women considered “nagging”, causing pain if they dared to move their tongues, has never disappeared; it simply operates in different forms. Today, it appears in the pressure to conform to social standards imposed by beauty trends, in order to avoid ostracism, whether in digital spaces or beyond them.
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The article above was edited by Alyah Gomes.
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