Silvia Federici is an Italian-American scholar, teacher, and Marxist feminist activist based in New York. She is a professor emerita and teaching fellow at Hofstra University in New York State, where she was a social science professor. Federici has been a prominent figure in feminist movements since the 1960s and has significantly contributed to international debates on the condition and remuneration of domestic work.

In 1972, with Mariarosa Dalla Costa and Selma James, she co-founded the International Feminist Collective, launching the campaign for Wages for Housework. In the 1980s, she taught in Nigeria, witnessing new attacks on communal resources. She also co-founded the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa (CAFA) in 1990 and edited its bulletin with Ousseina Alidou for over a decade.

Federici is a member of the Midnight Notes Collective and has supported student struggles in Africa and the U.S. She co-founded the Radical Philosophy Association's anti-death penalty project in 1995. Her work with feminist organizations globally includes partnerships with Women in Nigeria, Ni Una Menos, and others. She has spent several years organizing a project with feminist collectives in Spain to reconstruct the history of women persecuted as witches.

Federici is acclaimed for her theories in Marxist feminism, women's history, and the theory of the commons. Her influential book, Caliban and the Witch, has been translated into over 20 languages and is used in academic courses globally. The work presents a history of capitalism with a focus on women's roles, critiquing Marx's notion of "primitive accumulation."