I believe in reclaiming the word witch.
For years I have been interested in the history of the persecution of witches, the majority of which were women. Women struggling with mental or physical challenges. Women who chose to have sex outside marriage or chose not to marry at all. Women who helped others as midwives or healers. These ‘outliers’ were punished for existing in ways that didn’t serve the male-centric societal model. Scholar Megan Komm sums it up as: “… women who ‘unrighteously’ exerted the feminine power associated with original sin—or any power, for that matter—were condemned as witches and enemies to the state.” Let’s be clear: witch hunts are women hunts. And I can’t help but see parallels between the historical record and our present day. The pyres might no longer be literal, but the patriarchy is still burning strong.
Over the past month I was reading my way through Marion Gibson’s Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials. Gibson traces how the hunting of witches in the Middle Ages has continued across eras and regions. It was eerie to read about Donald Trump’s treatment of Stormy Daniels the evening before election night. In reaction to Trump's election win in 2016 we saw feminist movements aligning themselves with the historical witch as a way to not only fight the ever-present patriarchy but also as an organizational tool “to create a figure that is more inclusive and intersectional.” Like any coven knows, there is power in numbers.
And it is with feelings of frustration, anger, and defeat that I write this post on the heels of his second election win. As a Canadian I had no ballot to cast in the recent US election, but I absolutely know that their policies and attitudes will permeate across the border—in many ways, it already has. Trump hasn’t even been sworn into office yet and we’re already seeing a more openly anti-women sentiment make headlines. Literally the day after the election a protest at Texas State University included posters that read “Types of Property: women, slaves, animals, cars, land, etc…” Given this list, I want to note that while I am taking a primary female lens to this post, I want to acknowledge (and Gibson’s work reflects this) that being labeled a witch is also applied to many marginalized communities by race, religion, ability, or sexual orientation.
Gibson begins her analysis with a demonology book you’re likely familiar with, the Malleus Maleficarum, commonly referred to in English as The Hammer of Witches. I remember first being introduced to this in school and immediately seeing the issues with it. They really did throw women into water and expect the innocent to drown and a witch to float. Either outcome guaranteed the death of the woman, deeming them disposable. What a convenient ‘legal’ way of getting rid of people you don’t like or feel threatened by. Perhaps this is where my first taste of injustice around the subject of witches began as I could see the blatant misogyny in the history.
What I didn’t know about the Malleus Maleficarum, which continues to have implications for women today, was that it was written after Inquisitor Heinrich Kramer felt ridiculed by a woman. A tale as old as time. Kramer was not only unsuccessful in convicting Helena Scheuberin of witchcraft, who he believed was morally corrupt, he was also discredited and run out of town.
From these origins, Gibson takes us through some of the history you’ve probably heard of in Scotland and Salem. She then traces these historical threads forward in time to the French Revolution, World War I and II, and to chilling stories about current accusations of witchcraft in modern day Lesotho and Zambia.
The thirteenth trial in the book, The Trial of Stormy Daniels: Witchcraft in North America, is not so much a conclusion than a new facet to the history Gibson has laid out in previous chapters. And this brings me right back around to US politics. By this point in the book, it is apparent how accusations of being a witch have become political vocabulary slung at women who, like their historical sisters, challenge the status quo.
What’s new is that, frustratingly, the language has also been co-opted by men. After centuries of using the term as rationale to torture and kill women, and continuing to use it as an insult, men in power are using it to create an appearance of victimhood. It absolutely enrages me as it isn’t possible to be a witch when you fit the very definition of witch-finder! Gibson is able to articulate this better than I can:
“But what is clear is that being a male, heterosexual, wealthy, white, able-bodied man at the pinnacle of state or church power is not the regular profile of a witch: that’s a witch-hunter” (260).
Witch is a legacy term for me. It is the women who came before that had their voices, their freedoms, their lives, taken away for being too much, for daring for different. Subject to a legal system stacked against them, these women should be remembered and I think it is fitting to reclaim the symbol of the witch as a feminist icon. I cannot be convinced that the likes of Donald Trump or Brett Kavanaugh are victims of a witch hunt when their money and status have allowed them to bend and benefit from the political and legal systems—the very opposite experience of a woman accused of witchcraft.
As you might imagine, I had a lot of emotions reading Witchcraft: A History in Thirteen Trials alongside political news and I had to take some breaks as I read it. It feels crushingly overwhelming to juxtapose a history of women being treated as both lesser than and yet also a threat and then see it mirrored in the media. This is usually the part in articles where authors will offer a rallying cry, but the truth is I feel a sense of grief that needs to be moved through in the short term. But we rest, we don’t give up. And I do appreciate some posts I am seeing about glimmers in the election results. For example, while it won’t mean change this time, I am heartened by the voter demographics shift. Voters who could historically have been labeled as witches—females, Black, Latinx—voted for inclusion politics, basic human rights. And as it stands, seven out of 10 states “approved measures to protect or expand abortion rights.” If I’m called a witch for celebrating these, then so be it.
I know emotions are running high and you may not feel like engaging with this topic right now, so thank you for reading this far. If you feel like it, I'd love to hear in the comments if you find the symbol of the witch empowering. The word 'witch' can conjure (pun intended) up all kinds of subtext (for example, hag, slave to the devil, seductress, etc.), so how do we interpret her as a symbol? Also, feel free to share what you're doing to take care of yourself in this new political landscape.