The role of witch hunts in the construction of the new world from Silvia Federici's feminist perspective

This study deals with relationship between the witch-hunts and the patriarchal capitalist system in the context of the female body in the Middle Ages and the Modern Age. The benefits of patriarchal capitalism are mostly provided through women's labor, women's bodies and sexuality. The underlying reason for the witch hunts, which reached extraordinary proportions from the 15th to the 18th centuries, is to adapt women to their enslaved position in patriarchal capitalism. Sexist oppression in the Europe turns into racist oppression when it reaches the New World. It is a very dangerous system of capitalism that tries to legitimize oppression through witch-hunts. In this study, it is aimed to reveal the oppression of the patriarchal capitalist system on women from the perspective of Silvia Federici on the basis of the witch hunts experienced in the early years of the system.