Welcome to the Witching Hour Part 4: Women Witches

 "All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which in women is insatiable." - Malleus Maleficarum

What is the first image that comes to mind when you picture a Witch? Or more specifically, who comes to mind?

For most the answer is a woman dressed all in black with a pointed hat. She might be old and oddly disfigured or young and beautiful with a voluptuous figure. Maybe she's pouring ingredients into a cauldron or flying on a broomstick. She might even have a black cat skulking around somewhere.

The stereotypical witch from western culture is nearly always a woman.

I swear this woman turned me into a newt.

That doesn't mean that men or non-binary people can't be witches. Some of you might have pictured Harry Potter or Merlin, except that they usually have the moniker of wizard attached to them.

To be fair, the words wizard and witch are often used to signify a magic practitioner's gender. However, they don't necessarily mean the same thing. Depending on the magical system, a wizard's magic might be very different than a witch's magic while at the same time keeping the gender barrier (such as in Sir Terry Pratchett's Disc World series). In other cases men and women can be either a wizard or a witch depending on how they use/acquire their magical ability. Other words that are known to be used interchangeably (with some regards to gender) are: sorceress, sorcerer, warlock (unpopular because it also means oath-breaker), enchanter, enchantress, and mage. You can find more information on magical title by clicking here.

Please note that a magician is typically someone who does magic tricks such as slight of hand, illusions, or misdirection. The title magician is rarely used to mean a practitioner or magic/magick.

For the purposes of this blog post, I'll be using the term witch to refer to people accused during the witch trials that plagued Europe and North America between the 1400 and 1700s.

Historically, witches could be either male or female, but let's be honest with ourselves. Most people accused and executed for witchcraft were women. According to the sources I could find, women made up between 75-85% of the people accused of witchcraft during the height of the North American and European witch hunts. A few accounts have even suggested that there wouldn't be a single woman left in a village once a witch hunt was concluded - having all been burned at the stake (sadly I can't find the source of this one).

In 1922, a Swedish-Danish man, Benjamin Christensen, created a silent dramatized documentary called Haxan. In his 7 part series of shorts, it shows the history of witchcraft as he researched it. Most of it is on how women were portrayed and accused of being witches. The seventh part fast-forwards to modern times (well 1920s modern times) about how institutionalizing women for mental problems (like hysteria) is similar to the witch trials of old. That last part feels incredibly insulting for many reasons, but the rest of it is pretty interesting to watch if only for the silly shenanigans that happen when you decide to join the devil (lots of debauchery and orgies apparently).

If you're interested the nearly 2 hour movie is in the public domain and you can watch it with English subtitles on YouTube. If you don't feel like sitting through a silent movie for 2 hours, there's a fabulously hillarious silent review that's only 15 minutes by Kyle from the YouTube show Brows Held High which you can watch here.

I think the guy in the center wants my soul guys!!!

Though the gender bias towards women witches wasn't the case in all countries where hunts occurred. Historians have noted that men were more often accused in Iceland, Finland, Estonia and Russia. (Here's where I found a lot of this information.)

However, this doesn't stop the fact that women were disproportionately affected by witch hunts (and by affected I mean tortured and then murdered). Women with property, but no husband, women who were healers and midwives, women who were poor or handicapped or just had a general displeasing disposition were prime targets to have accusations thrown at them.

Some might attribute this bias as part of the Madonna and Whore complex. It divides women into two categories. The first being the virtuous pure woman who can do no wrong like The Holy Mother Mary. The second being the vile sinful temptress who will bring down mankind a la Eve. Either a woman knows her place in society or she's evil and going to bring about the ruin of civilization. There is no in-between. 

One famous example is Bridget Bishop from the Salem Witch Trials. She was a widow and had inherited the ownership of a tavern and apple orchard (which stood in front of Salem prison) upon her husband's death. Now women in colonial America didn't really own anything. Any property she might possess was immediately transferred to her husband upon marriage. As Mrs. Bishop refused to find herself a new husband and liked to dress in a manor that was considered scandalous for the time, she was often met with disapproval from her Puritan neighbors (the anti-fun that they were).

It really didn't help that she had a lovely apple orchard worth a pretty penny that stood right in front of Salem prison (did I already mention that?).

Bridget Bishop wasn't the first person in Salem to be accused of witchcraft, but she was the first person executed. In fact, her trial and sentencing were all sped up just so the powers-that-be could confiscate and properly redistribute her land all the faster. There was some talk that they hurried her trial along so that they could expand the prison (it was overflowing with people accused of witchcraft), but that expansion never happened.

Taken one step further, many of the things witches could be accused of were often considered more famine in nature. Altering one's appearance - known as putting on a glamour - to appear more attractive and enchant someone with their "new" beauty into a relationship. Today women are still more likely than men to wear makeup and be accused of misleading a man when she's not as attractive without it. Potion making can resemble cooking (again more associated with women's work than men's) and are used for enchanting, healing, or poisoning. Interestingly enough, poisoning was considered a women's preferred method of murder for centuries (Agatha Christie novels are full of this stereotype).

Oh, and don't forget women's right to control their bodies, especially when it comes to reproduction. It's a "controversial" fight well into modern times. The Malleus Maleficarum makes several references to witches preventing conception and causing abortions. Who would be most interested in this knowledge? Women. Who would most likely know the folklore and practice around it? Women.

Women stood a lot to lose from an accusation of being a witch. How could they protect themselves from having the finger pointed at them?

They accused their neighbors first.

Something that tends to get glossed over in the history books is that women were just as likely as men to accuse someone of witchcraft. In fact women accused of witchcraft had to be looked over by other women for signs of the "devil's mark" (imperfections on the skin such as a birth mark or scar), it wasn't proper for a man to do it. Women could even be the most vocal against an accused person, especially if there was a known rivalry between the two.

She's a witch! And she's a witch! THEY'RE ALL WITCHES!

Remember how I keep bringing up Salem? Well the trials began because of two young girls. It isn't clear exactly why they started accusing people of witchcraft (likely to stay out of trouble from some misdeed), but eventually these two girls expanded to include more and more of their friends and neighbors. Certainly they were egged on by the power-that-be, but it was young women and girls who primarily targeted other women.

Things clearly haven't changed much over the centuries. Women seem to always be pitted against each other for one reason or another.

So how did we go from evil witch to beloved fixture of the fall season, popular book heroine, and nose twitching TV icon? Furthermore, where do modern practicing witches fit into all of this?

Yeah, that's right, witches still exist and they don't need anyone's approval but their own.

Until next week.

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