Witch hunts and gender-critical feminists

[heresyandwitchcraft]

As you may have surmised from my username, I see parallels between the witch-hunts of yesteryear and the current movement to label gender-critical women T*RFs alongside disturbing calls to use violence against such females.

I personally have found it interesting to briefly look back at the history of witch trials to get some perspective on the misogyny I perceive in this "debate." Being accused of witchcraft in many countries was (and in some places still is!) a charge disproportionately leveled at females. One might idly ponder if current transgender ideology arguably relies too heavily on belief in an unproveable/"supernatural" force (e.g. that of the "feminine/masculine" essence that transcends biology) and whether there are commonalities between such views and the beliefs in magic of yore. Who knows? Certainly both "sides" in this "debate" appear to accuse each other of moral panic, and persecution.

However, it is definitely worth thinking about historical misogyny. In my post these will be predominantly from a European perspective. I recently found out that "scolding" used to be an actual crime - reserved predominantly for angry, quarrelsome females for speaking out of turn, gossiping, or behaving rudely. This was punishable by the "cucking stool," where she would be strapped to a chair and dunked underwater. Or she might be made to wear what was known as a "scold's bridle"/"witch's bridle," which physically prevented her from speaking lest she cut her tongue, and was typically accompanied by public humiliation.

During many witch trials, once you were labelled a witch you either confessed your sins for a quick execution or you professed your innocence. If you kept denying witchery, you would be systematically broken down using brutal means. In some places, they would tie you up and throw you in the water first to test the witchcraft accusation. If you floated then your witchcraft was confirmed and you would meet a very grim fate. If you sank then you were innocent but at high risk of drowning. You'd likely be asked to name your "co-conspirators," so that the hunters could root out all the witches in the area. Importantly, there was usually no dignified way out once you were branded a witch.

One might ask whether there are any similar principles of misogyny that hold true now. I have stopped worrying as much about being called a modern witch because these historical examples weirdly remind me (eerily) of what women are currently being asked to do: shut up, stop thinking about certain issues, and play nice to keep the peace. I do not think it was an accident that there is a feminist theory that midwives (those specialists of the female body) allegedly were over-represented in being accused of witchcraft. I do not think it is completely out of the blue that it is now the female body which is again being erased from the public domain - only to be spoken of in hushed, convoluted terms. I do not think it is merely coincidental that some trans activists wonder whether women even exist, much less have the authority to speak with authority on the female experience. And I certainly do not think it's outside the pattern for misogyny that the main people being targeted in this debate are dissenting females, with some corners of the internet seeming to wish to enforce corporeal punishment on women simply for speaking, as a consequence for not acquiescing completely to an ideology.

All I can say is that I may very well be considered to be an evil witch. I know in my own heart that I have no ill-intent towards anyone, but I have no way of proving this. I have come to terms with that idea. I now take accusations against other people with a healthy pinch of skepticism - the way I would have wanted society to consider those accused of witchcraft in the past. I try to continually re-evaluate my own position and carefully examine evidence. Throughout all this I have only kept thinking it is important for the other "witches" to be able to have their opinions heard instead of calling for them to be burned at the stake.

Thanks MN for still allowing us to express ourselves. Special thanks to all the heretics, especially the ones who display so much courage and patience on a daily basis. I personally have come to see this moment in history as just the latest in a long line of outspoken women who are being outcast for daring to have an unorthodox point of view. Women still have voices, even though they may not get the respect that a man who is defending free speech might be afforded, or get any of the broad institutional support provided to some trans rights activists.

Perhaps it is considered uncouth for a woman to say that females are real and exist as their own category, unified by their sex. Humans cannot change their reproductive sex.
Females matter. Feminism was designed to help females.
Please keep talking.
And remember to practice your cackle!

YY. Maria McLachlan who is a sceptic and Andy Lewis have done a good job of highlighting the lazy thinking of other "skeptics" on this issue. They really don't question this much. If this was homeopathy or any other subject they were talking about, given the lameness of the scientific evidence available for innate gender identity they would be laughed off the internet. By people just like them.

More please Alice. I'm learning so much from this

So interesting Alice. Please tell us more.

Heresy very interesting post. I've just read 'Witch: Unleashed' by Lisa Lister, talking about different modern witch beliefs. She talks about coming under pressure to be 'trans inclusive' as she is writing a book about women, for women, where biology is the core of woman, and could not be inclusive. She celebrates (in her words) 'women bleed five days every month yet don't die'. It's amazing.

And this sort of talk incites utter rage, and words like 'exclusion' as if to mention it is hateful/upsetting to hear, because it's women not only mentioning but celebrating the things that men do not and cannot ever have, a separation of something that cannot be taken or appropriated, something that cannot be shared in, is a demonstration of power and independence that threatens the foundations of patriarchy.

Sorry, it's long!

One of the most distressing cases I ever read about was that of Anna Pappenheimer who was executed in Bavaria in 1600 with her husband and sons. They were classic targets being from the bottom rung of society - Anna's father was a gravedigger and husband cleaned privies - and they were Lutherans in a Catholic state. The witch hunt was initiated from on high by the young duke who was looking to stamp his authority both politically and religiously but who also believed absolutely in the power of witches and blamed them for his wife's childless state. Tortured into confessions, the family were subjected to a grotesque public execution in the course of which Anna's breasts were sliced off and then rubbed into the mouths of her sons in a grim parody of breastfeeding.

Obviously, the obsession with nursing and witches runs deep - the witch's teat, used to suckle the devil or a familiar was a common theme. Women's power was limited, but only women could give birth and nourish babies and a woman's role as mother also, inevitably, meant that she had been sexually active. This seems to have aroused in some rather fevered and lurid concerns - most notably in the Malleus Maleficarum, the C15th work of two Dominican priests which drips with misogynistic loathing. The authors contended that women were untruthful, superstitious (ironic!), carnal creatures whose unrestrained lusts rendered men impotent and worse. They were also suspicious of the midwives who, they believed, would provide stillborn (and therefore unbaptised) children to witches to eat or make potions from. Now, it has been argued that this was a particularly nasty work even for the period and there is evidence that even the Spanish Inquisition found it extreme. The suspicion of midwives does not seem to have been widely shared - in fact in England and Scotland persecutions of midwives were rare and while they did play a role in many trials, it was usually in examining the accused for teats etc. However, I don't think we can dismiss it. The trial of Anne Boleyn shows how easily women's sexuality could be construed as deviance and tied to witchcraft and while midwives may not have been targeted, other women who were present at births (or indeed who stayed away) were often accused of causing the death of an infant.

It's also true that the Malleus Maleficarum coincides with the start of the period when the devil becomes a more important agent in witchcraft. Magic and sorcery in preceding periods were frequently indistinguishable from science - alchemists worked at court. It was, of course, something which could work harm: Alice Perres, mistress of Edward III, was accused of gaining his affection and causing madness through magic. However, in the main, the lurid sexual angle and the idea of congress with diabolical forces was absent. Once this takes root, it is natural that women are the main accused: Eve having, through female weakness, allowed evil into the garden and caused the fall of man.

This lurid angle plays out in the examination of the witch. As I mentioned, this was often done by other women like midwives, but it would be witnessed by the male official and the witch-finders who carried out pricking were male. The disturbing interest and minute inspection of the body of the accused is often distasteful in the records: there are reports of women being taken to the town hall and stripped naked and pricked in a room full of magistrates. A woman would also be stripped to be whipped and the state of her breasts is frequently commented on. Worse things occurred - rape of very young prisoners and vaginal mutilation.

The frequency with which women turned on each other and the fact that women often outnumbered men as witnesses has sometimes been used to minimise charges of misogyny. I think this is slightly disingenuous but it is interesting. Women's place in this patriarchal society was fragile and I think there was an element of what to do with older dependant women and the guilt associated with treating them badly. Marina Warner in her work on fairy tales draws attention to the role of older women in providing childcare while mothers worked: stories often, therefore, ally the young heroine with an older crone (possibly a fairy in disguise). The vilification of the stepmother points to the concern that the family of a dead wife will be usurped by her successor competing for scant family resources. I think these concerns of precarious status and shifting loyalty kept women wary. So, sadly I don't think the proto-feminists gathered at the Sabat, but when families of women did cultivate a reputation as witches they could, for a time, exercise a certain power as we see in trials like that of the Pendle witches in 1612. This probably informs some of the confessions - the momentary thrill of being feared. Sadly, there may also have been suppressed guilt for any illicit affairs or neglect of a child which they might have come to believe was caused by a baleful influence.

Clearly though, the notion of unobserved (by men) females in the birth chamber or in matriarchal families frightened authorities. I think we still see this and the desire to infiltrate female space (because what are we plotting?) along with the need to police sexuality. It matters to me when those grotesque little men on Twitter call us witches and organise social media hunts because at their backs stand Hopkins and Kramer and all the other torturers and murderers. But it exposes them. One good and crucial difference for us is that we are actually talking and gathering and we are educated.

It matters to me when those grotesque little men on Twitter call us witches and organise social media hunts because at their backs stand Hopkins and Kramer and all the other torturers and murderers.

This. And all of it. Great post, Alice.

Alice I feel like a kid at storytime . Fantastic, from the greater societal context, the specific examples that highlight the obsession with the female body and twisted persecution, to the links with female roles ascribed to women.
Clearly, this subject is one I need to look into more as I am very much a curious dilettante. Thank you.

There's another layer, on top of the witch hunt: the parallels with religious and cultural zealots.

Trans ideology relies on faith and concepts like an inner soul, spirit, whatever. Transgressions (see what I did there?) are policed and punished.

I do not think it was an accident that there is a feminist theory that midwives (those specialists of the female body) allegedly were over-represented in being accused of witchcraft.

It's not just a feminist theory, the most you look into it the more obvious it becomes. It might not be accepted by some historians, because they're mostly men and almost all are reading from a patriarchal view point. I've been reading Eve's Herbs, which goes through the vast body of evidence we have that women have had access to contraceptive since ancient times, and that that knowledge was systematically erased during the middle ages and early modern period, by targeting and killing midwives and other women of knowledge. There were other motivations too, (the church reasserting its power after the schism and needing an easy target, for example) but erasing women's cultural knowledge was a big one.

The "Summis desiderantes affectibus", the first official document from the church about witches says that they "have slain infants yet in the mother's womb...they hinder men from performing the sexual act and women from conceiving" among a bunch of other stuff.

By around the 1600s the whole thing had spun completely out of control and anyone and everyone was at risk, but it's hard to deny that the original targets were women with specific knowledge of the female body.

One of the ways women were identified as witches, known as 'sevenfold witchcraft', witches would:

-Practice fornication and adultery
-Obstruct the generative act by rendering men impotent
-Perform castration and sterilization
-engage in bestiality and homosexuality
-Destroy the generative force in women
-Procure abortion
-Offer children to devils.

All of those things are related to women controlling their own fertility, and 4 of them are directly talking about contraceptive methods. That is what the church hated and tried to burn out of us. Every time you see an official statement from the church about witches from the time, look for it, it's always there. Witches have sex with the devil, they use the devil to kill babies, they give the babies to the devil, they make men impotent, they use magic to make women sterile. All that stuff about flying around or summoning demons is just a distraction. The same as when Donald Trump says mexicans are rapists, it's not actually *true, he doesn't believe it, and none of his followers actually believe it, it's just a convenient excuse for targeting a group they already hate.

Alice, I respectfully disagree about some of what you've said. The first witch trials were back in the 1400s. It ramped up in the 1600s but it had already been going for quite some time before that.

The low estimates of witch burnings (less than 100,000) usually takes into account only those that happened in the late 1500s and onwards, and only the official ones. Larger estimates account for the earlier ones, the missing records, and the likelihood of 'unofficial' witch trials by small communities that never made it on to the official register. It probably wasn't millions, as some people say, but a half a million is not unlikely to some historians. I mean, take your lower estimate of 50,000. The witch trials took place over about 300 years total, that's an average of about 167 women a year for the whole of Europe. We know there were some individual towns were they killed hundreds of women in a year. We know of some towns where every women was killed except one. 50,000 just doesn't make sense.

It's true that the majority of the people accused were women, and also that when men were accused they were far more likely to be let go, or punished by banishment rather than burning alive. So same old shit basically.

"a bereaved mother, for example, trying to blame someone for the death of a baby." - you've missed over the fact that a woman who miscarried or lost a baby was almost automatically suspected of being a witch and killing her baby. She was pushed to either confess, or accuse someone else. Often the midwife was convenient, as only the midwife and the mother were in the room during the birth - it had to be one of them, surely? If accused it was on the mother to somehow prove that the baby died of natural courses, or to accuse the 'real' culprit.

England the UK didn't get swept up to the same extent that mainland Europe did, and they were less sexist about it, but mainland Europe was focused on women, and midwives.

On women accusing other women - they were forced to do that quite a lot. It was an act of self preservation. And the confessions were often brought about by torture too, not by a desire to be seen as powerful. I have read that it was common practice to tie a woman to a stake and give her the option; if you confess, and name your fellow witches, we'll slit your throat and you can die relatively quickly. Otherwise, you will burn alive while your family watches. Fuck me, how do you even make that choice? Your kids will either be officially the children of a witch, or watch their mother burn alive.

suppressedhistories.net/ has a lot of good information for further reading.

Thank you for this very interesting thread.

Adding my thanks for such an interesting and informative thread. And great holiday reading material :)

the family were subjected to a grotesque public execution in the course of which Anna's breasts were sliced off and then rubbed into the mouths of her sons in a grim parody of breastfeeding

There's a reference to something similar to this in the histories of Roman writer Dio Cassius. Writing much later than the events he describes, he 'records' that during the Boudiccan rebellion again the Roman incomers in AD 60, when the rebels destroyed Colchester they took women colonists and skewered them lengthways and cut off their breasts and sewed them to their mouths.

True or not? This is the word of later Dio, not the earlier Tacitus. Gruesome druidic ritual, or later Roman projection? Whatever, there's possibly a narrative there of mutilation and annihilation of the female body and function, as particular punishment and retribution. The grim parody of breasts in mouths is striking.

This is a fascinating thread (disturbing and upsetting, but fascinating).

Not about witchcraft, but about midwives:

I'm interested in the history of medicine, and remember reading many years ago that the emergence of male doctors led to a striking increase in maternal death among wealthier families because, unlike midwives, doctors at the time would take no care over cleanliness. A doctor would go from an amputation to a delivery without even changing his coat. What was called puerperal fever was rife - and caused by lack of hygiene.

Ordinary people couldn't afford the doctor, lucky for them. But a wealthy man might easily marry three times, having lost two to childbirth. I seem to recall an article that analysed this phenomenon in one of the Eastern counties - Norfolk?

This thread is one of the reasons why I love the FWR boards. Fascinating discussion by eloquent, informed women.
The village I lived in as a teenager is apparently reasonably well known for its witch trial of an elderly woman and her family. The fact that three witches on broomsticks is the logo of the village school suggests that for many this is considered ancient history, but as we know from the posts of heresy Alice and bloodmagic there are worrying present day parallels. For anyone interested in the trial I mentioned, you can read an account of it here:
www.tellinghistory.co.uk/resources/WitchesOfWarboys.pdf

and if you want some witch related fiction try Weird Sister by Kate Pullinger, set in a fictionalised version of the village and featuring the historical events of Alice and Agnes Samuel as a backdrop to modern day events.

These stories are heartbreaking. Men really sank to the depths in their wish to obliterate and erase women. It's too much sometimes, reading and hearing about men's barbaric treatment of women. And men are still at it. They learn NOTHING.

Bloodmagic thank you very much for your insight and very informative post. This particular "dispute" is not much one I can claim any solid knowledge of, but it certainly seems undeniable that the female body is intricately linked to ideas of witchcraft.

I have to say I've always personally found the status of midwives very interesting. And to pick up on the history of childbirth, as Prawn also mentioned, one weird factoid that's always stuck with me is the idea of the "birthing chair." Physiologically, I believe that giving birth should be technically easier if a woman is upright or in a squatting position - because you are working WITH gravity, and it is apparently more comfortable. "Birthing chairs" were designed for women in labour to allow them to take advantage of these factors, but allegedly fell out of favour once males got involved in childbirth (I've heard this is because the doctors wanted to be more in control of the process and "able to see" what was happening). I don't want to denigrate modern medicine, or take away from the fact that childbirth has become MUCH safer and the male contributions to this, but when I think about the idea of a birthing chair - designed for women and used for forever - versus being placed in stirrups - designed more for the men who are at the end of the bed - there is something that feels oddly symbolic about the whole thing.

I look forward to looking at all the sources you lovely ladies have provided

As a reminder of the current day, a supporter of the Green Party actually insinuated they wanted to burn the "Pussy Church of Modern Witchcraft".
twitter.com/YoungGreenParty/status/1030012693493760000

(In case people are wondering why I see parallels....)

...but when I think of the birthing chair - designed for women and used forever- versus being placed in stirrups - designed more for the men who are at the end of the bed - there is something that feels oddly symbolic about the whole thing.

Reading that made me think of the ‘male gaze’. Woman as object to be placed in the surroundings - not a living, breathing or moving person.

Prawn, the higher survival rates for midwife attended births as opposed to doctor attended is discussed in the excellent little book, Midwives And Medical Men.

It also posits that for the rich, the survival of the child was utmost, and therefore the women were sacrificed by the male doctors where need be for the good of the husband and his line.

Prawn, you are absolutely right. The doctors would come from an operation or even a dissection and assist at a birth. It's stomach churning. They also introduced a lot of new implements like forceps which were also hygienic and often unnecessary and, yes, they wanted women to lie down.

I'm not very well educated on this, but I do have a bit of a passion for the Tudor period (note - I'm definitely not an academic) and especially the fates of women, both noble and poor, during this time. I devour books and documentaries and, of course, fictional accounts, and came to the realisation, years ago, that Jane Seymour probably only died because of poor hygiene in her birth chamber. I believe both Katherine of Aragon and Anne Boleyn were attended to by midwives and had, as far as I know, fairly standard births, without any health issues for the women, although of course not all their babies survived or went full term (normal, at that time I should think).

By the time Jane was pregnant, Fat Henry was so desperate to have a son delivered safely that he insisted doctors (male) attended Jane. Of course, she, of all his wives, delivered the longed for son, but died of "childbed fever" within a week or so. That it has a name probably means there were general cleanliness issues around childbirth at the time, but a noble woman, especially the Queen, shouldn't have been exposed to the kinds of germs that a butcher's wife would have been. She was the Queen.

I can't help but wonder if she'd have lived, and maybe had more healthy babies, had women been allowed to care for her?

The study I mentioned (Norfolk, Suffolk?) looked at prosperous farmers, as I recall, in the period when what were sometimes called man midwives became fashionable. They used graveyards and basically counted the number of their wives and how old they were when they died. A man whose wife died would typically remarry shortly afterwards, either because he needed an heir or needed a wife to care for the DC he already had. The number of women who died in childbirth was horrifying.

Horrific, isn't it? Basically they were "breeding sows" and servants.

Couple of replies, sorry won't be as comprehensive as I'd like! I certainly don't want to down play the misogyny nor the element of fear associated with women and their knowledge.

Numbers: I always have a tendency to err on the side of caution but I agree that numbers are slippery and estimates are best guess to a certain extent. Personally, I tend to the 100k number, but this doesn't necessarily include those who died awaiting trial or if other related causes. Records are difficult as many are lost or incomplete so it's arguably low, but it's extrapolated from the evidence we have (and rounded up significantly - pretty much doubled!). What it does not alter, however, is the nature of this as an attack which was primarily targeted at women and informed by misogyny (for absolute completeness, I will mention that in Russia and Finland the majority of the accused were men - interesting, but doesn't affect the general 80-90% trend elsewhere!).

What you have to remember is that this was not sustained at the same level across time and place: fear of witches may have been constant but it tended to flare up suddenly in different localities and in deadly fashion. Early modern society simply couldn't have functioned if every village was constantly in the grip of a witch hunt. This is not to reduce the horror: in some areas the results were so extreme that communities were left eviscerated - two German villages had just one woman each left alive after a hunt. In Wurzberg alone 160 people were executed by the bishop between 1627-1629 in a campaign to Catholize the region. But, if nothing else, for practical reasons that level simply couldn't be maintained. Nor was it consistent across Europe: German speaking communities were especially high, Ireland was pretty much non-existent. Some countries had a much more limited period of attacks and punishment differed: in Germany you were more likely to be executed, in other places, like Italy, imprisonment or flogging were more common.

Dates: Of course it's impossible to draw a line and determine a start and end point - ideas develop at different rates and in different places. There was a papal bull of 1326 which authorized inquisitorial power against witches and yes, there are earlier trials in which the concept of malefic is raised, for example cases in Switzerland between 1397-1406. Importantly, though, the concept of witchcraft here was regarded as element of heresy. This may seem like I'm making unnecessary distinctions, but it's important as what we see is a shift in the focus of the inquisition from heretics and other persecuted groups like the Jews to witches. In 1450 Vineti writes Tractus contra Daemonum Invocatores which paints witchcraft as a new heresy. The ideas about night meetings, sexual deviance, cannibalism, child murder etc are all directly borrowed from the old accusations levelled at Jews and heretics. So whereas witchcraft allegations had formed a lurid element of the charge sheet against the Templars, for example, it gradually becomes the main event and, crucially, it shifts the focus onto women. Malleus Maleficarum and, as bloodmagic mentioned, Summis Desiderantes Affectibus are both written in the 1480s and cement the notion of witchcraft as a female practice. The latter is a papal bull of 1484 and its purpose was to encourage witch hunting in the German regions. It appears to have been issued after a request from Kramer (author of MM) to back up his campaign. That the inquisitor sought this is seen as evidence that the authorities at this stage were not so keen to comply as they would later become.

Women's work / knowledge: I think, perhaps, I'm trying to counter the notion that women were killed primarily for their knowledge and skill etc rather than just for being women. Partly because there were far more murdered women than just ones with healing skills. But cunning women or healers were obviously at risk - perhaps that is why so many midwives were happy to offer services in examining the accused, to deflect attention. Of course, that didn't necessarily save them either, especially if they were happy to claim some magical power. The benandanti in Italy claimed their power protected children from the witches who would snatch them from cradles but were accused of using the evil eye in any case. I suppose my point would be that much of this was concocted in the imaginations of men who saw women as conspiring against them and they used as a basis something that directly related to female experience (childbirth etc) and excluded them. The attack would naturally affect those who claimed this knowledge but it went so much wider.

I would, however, take issue with the comment that women were automatically at risk if their child died. In an era of high infant mortality, there were few families untouched by death. At times of high panic this might just be true, but what we frequently see in trials is the fears and suspicions which have built over many years erupting when the accused is finally arraigned. Of course, this does not negate the point that women would accuse others to save themselves and it is horrific how many young children were swept up and implicated with their mothers but we should remember that there were many women who did genuinely believe that they were harmed by a neighbour. The need to blame is a strong human impulse (see parents who try to persue impossible cures for sick children and attack doctors if they think they are blocking them. Or who blame vaccines. It's irrational, but perhaps understandable especially where there is incomplete knowledge). This doesn't reduce the aspect of patriarchal oppression - after all, this was what society conditioned them to believe.

During the C16th there was a period of inflation and population growth. To generalize, women suffered more economically than men and were more vulnerable to attacks simply for being poor. A woman who cursed you if you didn't give her money or sacked her was first on the list if your cow sickened. Your guilt was assuaged by the knowledge she was an evil witch. The schism in religion along with economic turbulence had also thrown up some pretty strange offshoots and some rather "end of days" style hysteria. Order was patriarchal, so if you were worried about it being upended, women were a natural enemy.

Of course, the vast majority of confessions were secured by torture or by an attempt to save their skin, but there were occasions where that was not the case and I find that psychology interesting.

BTW, the poor 10 year old son of the Pappenheimers watched his parents die. His comments which read like the hysterical outbursts of a traumatised child trying to detach from the horror was used to convict him and he was burnt some weeks later.

Sociopath, yes, Jane died of puerperal fever. I always think of poor Mary Wollstonecraft who also died of sepsis after the doctor ripped out the placenta which had got stuck. He thought, of course, that he was saving her.