In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial

by Mona Chollet

Centuries of hatred and obscurantism seem to have culminated in this wave of violence, born of fear in the face of the increasing space taken up by women in the social realm.

The witch-hunts had by then fulfilled their function: there was no further need to burn women alleged to be witches; now, the law “enabled the curtailment of all women’s independence.”

Nowadays, despite being legally and practically sanctioned, women’s independence continues to elicit general skepticism. Women’s bond with men and with children, carried out in the mode of selflessness, is still considered the core of their identity. The way girls are brought up and socialized teaches them to avoid isolation and leaves their faculty for independence largely undeveloped.

Over the same period as the witch-hunts, we also see the criminalization of contraception and abortion.

witch-hunts paved the way for the gendered labor division required by capitalism, reserving remunerated work for men and assigning to women the birthing and education of the future labor-force.

Of course, the history of science and art is filled with men who have appropriated the work of a female partner—F. Scott Fitzgerald, for example, who studded his books with his wife Zelda’s writing, and who, when she was preparing a collection of texts for publication, suggested Authors Wife [sic] for the title.

Self-sacrifice remains the only fate imaginable for women. More precisely, it is a self-sacrifice that operates by way of abandoning one’s own creative potential rather than by its realization.

Whether they live with men or not, and whether or not they have a vocation, some women do find another way to escape being sucked into the role of devoted servant: by not having children to bring up; by focusing on their own self-realization, rather than on giving life to others; and by fashioning a feminine identity that has no need of motherhood.

“Life” does not inspire them to action except when it comes to wrecking women’s lives. A pro-birth policy is about wielding power, not about care for humanity.

Not having a child means knowing that, when you die, you will leave behind nobody birthed by you, partly moulded by you and to whom you would have handed down a sense of family and the enormous, sometimes overwhelming baggage of stories, situations, sorrows and treasures accumulated by previous generations—everything that you yourself inherited.

Hence, while still a good thing, easy access to divorce allows men to leave their middle-aged wives for other women whose “bodily capital” remains intact.

They are accepting an absurd challenge. They must pretend time is not passing, and therefore look the only way society dictates it is acceptable for a woman over thirty to look: like a young woman who has been pickled alive.

Men’s dominant position in economics and politics, in love and family relationships, but also in the artistic and literary worlds allows them to be absolute subjects and to make women into absolute objects.

Western culture decided early on that the body was repulsive—and also that it was female, and vice versa.

We deplore sexism—on the part of students and teachers—just as we deplore the lack of self-confidence that prevents girls from choosing to work in physics or computer science. But too often I think we forget to question the actual content of what is taught; we neglect the fact that, for young women, going to university implies adopting varieties of knowledge, methods and codes that, for centuries, have been almost entirely created without them—when not actually against them.

No longer perceived as a nourishing bosom, nature then became a wild and disorderly force which had to be tamed. And the same went for women,

“The witch, symbol of the violence of nature, raised storms, caused illness, destroyed crops, obstructed generation and killed infants. Disorderly women, like chaotic nature, needed to be controlled.”

Once curbed and domesticated, both women and nature could be reduced to their decorative function, to become “psychological and recreational resources for the harried entrepreneur-husband.”

Healthcare as we know it was built upon women’s physical elimination: the witch-hunts first focused on female healers,

An American journalist, Annaliese Griffin, feels that the recent success among wealthy women of the wellness industry—with all its much-derided yoga, detoxing, smoothies, acupuncture, etc.—can be explained by the disenfranchisement and dehumanization women are experiencing within the dominant medical system.

Similarly, why should the rediscovery of our connection with nature require imposing motherhood on women who don’t want it and thereby violating their sovereignty over their own bodies?

Turning the world upside down is no small undertaking. But there can be great joy—the joy of audacity, of insolence, of a vital affirmation, of defying faceless authority—in allowing our ideas and imaginations to follow the paths down which these witches’ whisperings entice us. Joy in bringing into focus an image of this world that would ensure humanity’s well-being through an even-handed pact with nature, not by a Pyrrhic victory over it—this world, where the untrammeled enjoyment of our bodies and our minds would never again be associated with a hellish sabbath.