EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION to "The Accumulation of Labor and the Degradation of Women".

The article discusses scholar Silvia Federici's essay which explores the historical impact of capitalism on women's authority and freedoms, arguing that capitalism degraded the autonomy women enjoyed in medieval times. While her analysis is insightful, her advocacy for contraception and abortion as tools of liberation detracts from her argument, as it implies an unlikely opposition by medieval women to the social order.