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https://newsletter.carolinecriadoperez.com/p/witches-and-babies-and-dei-oh-my

During the witch-hunts of the 16th and 17th centuries birth control and non-procreative sex were literally demonised, and this took place in the context not only of population decline, but also a philosophical and political fixation on the connection between a country’s population size and its wealth. At the same time as witches were being hunted down, states also redefined what constituted a reproductive crime, with abortion and contraception now becoming officially criminalised. Meanwhile childbirth, previously almost exclusively the domain of women, now required a surveillance of a male doctor. By the beginning of the 17th century in France and England, writes Federici, “the first male midwives began to appear and, within a century, obstetrics has come almost entirely under state control.”

Alongside this state-sponsored reproductive terrorism came the increasing relegation of women to the home “in a way unknown in previous societies”, alongside the systematic devaluation of their labour. Reproductive work which previously had not been separated out from productive work, all of it being recognised as essential to the maintenance of family life, became officially non-work. Indeed, even when women did engage in market work at home, it was argued by public authorities that this too was not work.