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!

@heresyandwitchcraft

Yes, the birthing chair was widely used, and also a birthing strap hung from the roof or something above the woman so she could have something to hang on and lean on. The midwife was typically behind the woman. But that just wouldn't do for a male doctor would it? To crouch behind a woman, getting his clothes all dirty? No chance.

Alice, of course it's such a huge period of time across so many different cultures that it's hard to make any meaningful general conclusions, and I don't consider myself an expert I've just been reading deeply into it from a very specific focus (the 1400s, peasant women, spirituality and fertility, in the area of the swiss plateau - if you have any good resources send them my way!), but I do think we let the patriarchy off far too lightly when we talk about the witch hunts as though they were events of mass hysteria. We say they mistakenly believed women were witches who had magic powers and killed them for it. The more I read the more I'm finding that's a historical rewriting. The authorities correctly identified witches and killed them because they were a threat. The Benandanti, for example, were an egalitarian people with their own complex spirituality, that is offensive and threatening to the patriarchal church. They weren't persecuted because people thought they were having freaky sabbaths and eating babies, they were persecuted because they were an ideological threat and the stuff about eating babies was a flimsy justification. The calling of 'witch' was a justification for the persecution they had already decided to enact. It wasn't an accident or an outbreak of insanity.

It's kind of like the oarfish thing. It drives me mad when i read about the oarfish and they call it 'the source of the sea serpent myth'. Go look up a picture of an oarfish. It IS a sea serpent. It wasn't a myth, it's a gigantic snakey thing that lives in deep water, it's what fishermen were looking at the first time they said "Ah! A sea serpent!". Independent women who controlled the power of fertility and were not controlled by the church or secular powers are exactly the thing people were looking at when they first said "A witch! Burn her!". The idea that witches don't and didn't exist is sort of a retroactive redefinition and it irks me.

Also interesting to note - before the witch trials women owned businesses are were full members of professional craftsmens guild. It wasn't a feminist utopia, but it was the witch trials that set women's progress backwards significantly and gave us the cultural idea that women were uneducated homemakers in the middle ages.

I've been thinking about this in the context of modern times. The patriarchy is and was made up of three basic pillars: the church, capitalism, and secular authority. Each of them headed by men, each supporting each other. There's some mention in Eve's Herbs of practicing doctors slandering herbal healers and midwives as not knowing anything or being any good (though, where do you think the doctors got all their information from in the first place?) because the fewer people went to their local healer the more money there was for the doctors. Burning all the healers certainly made a lot of men very rich. And how can a patriarchal religion claim their god is the all powerful one who decides who gets born and who dies when you know there's a woman just down the road who actually gets to determine which babies get born and which get aborted? Doesn't that completely undermine the whole idea of a patriarchal god? If god wanted men to be in change of that shit why did he leave all these herbs all over the place that let women absolutely control it? Killing off all those women as heretics shored up the church's power over peoples lives. And increased population as a result of taking over women's fertility increases the military and economic power of a nation, as well and the state's secular powers being reinforced by the enforcement of the will of the church and capitalism.

I tend to look at misogyny and anti-semitism in particular as "canaries in the coalmine" when thinking about society/ideology.

Very interesting point there, Heresy. Possibly because they are so easy for the christian patriarchy to 'other'? I.e. you can demonize those groups with absolutely no chance of it ever coming back to hurt you personally.

I think it might also have something to do with the 'secret knowledge' thing, as you said. I mean, Jews know all about Christianity, they were around long before it. So if they are still Jewish they must know something the Christians don't, they must know why Christians are wrong. Maybe their existence alone creates a feeling of existential insecurity in Christians? Women also create a feeling of existential insecurity in some men, especially when we have power. We as a society could function perfectly well if we lost 99% of men, but society would crumble if we lost the same amount of women. Christianity needs Judaism in order to exist, but Judaism doesn't need Christianity. Men need women but women don't need men. So christian men are insecure and express that through control and demonisation? I'm just guessing here.

Bloodmagic, thank you, that is fascinating.

If I wanted to do some reading about this are there any sources you recommend?

Oh you lot are so annoying. I fully intended to wake up early, get up and clean house but now I’ve discovered this way-too-interesting thread

I've been reading this thread over the past several days - thank you all for for being so interesting and informative! Really fascinating stuff, and depressingly easy to relate to the present day.

Just caught up. Have been saving this thread to binge-read.

I really appreciate everyone's contributions, and taking the time to educate us and engage in these trains of thought. Thank you!

Alice
Those stories of the North Berwick trials are fascinating. Especially the political angle and the fact that James considered himself to be such a rational person.

It again brings to mind more disturbing parallels to our modern day predicament (as the guest appearance by good ol'Harrop has highlighted).

He also says that there are 20 female witches for one man and gives the reason “that sex is frailer than man is, so it is easier to be entrapped in those gross snares of the devil, as was over-proved to be true by the serpent’s deceiving of Eva”.

That Biblical story has a LOT to answer for. The perceived ability for a woman to "corrupt" a man with poisonous ideas, which is why she is especially dangerous, is so toxic. Part of me wishes they could at least have credited Eve with coming up with the idea herself. Like a person with actual agency in the story, instead of being "created from Adam" and then influenced by the Serpent.

(Was this an early example of a type of DARVO? Obviously man is borne of woman, and I'd suspect if there was some forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge, it would definitely have been the man who chomped into it first. Let's not fool ourselves.)

If you were being serious about the Spanish Inquisition, I will sit by the fire and listen to your stories for as long as you want to tell them.

Bloodmagic

The sad thing about the birthing chair is that I wonder if it should actually be looked at again, from our current medical perspective? If the upright sitting position of the woman/gravity actually help in childbirth significantly, then maybe a modern version of the birthing chair should be reintroduced.

I really like the way you view this using the lens of patriarchal power. It actually does seem to build on what Alice was saying, when she mentioned the political aspects of this, as well as personal slights potentially triggering a witch accusation. Certainly there is an element of ideological threat, as well as an aggressive display of dominance. I do think "mass hysteria" is also a factor, though, because these persecutions must create an atmosphere of terror - the witches themselves (so you are looking out for witchcraft), the ability to accuse others (so the more powerful, perhaps, can hold this over their subordinates' heads), and the threat of being labelled a witch (so you are constantly monitoring your own behaviour). I would be panicked in such a situation. Those lowest on the totem pole are those who are at most at risk.
So the original signal might be from those with political power, but it spreads across society?
(Again, I see parallels with the wars around gender ideology, and the fact that it is now lesbians who are, in my view, targeted the most.)

I am going to keep thinking about why this idea of anti-semitism and misogyny have similarities (in my weird mind! The witches' Sabbat and the Jewish Sabbath, why do they have the same name? However, it may all just be a historical thing that I am reading too much in to!), but I agree completely that there seems to be some kind of existential insecurity at play, and a desire to control that "other."

I will try to keep this thread on witchcraft, though! Thanks again to you all for making the discussion so fun to read!

I don’t have a lot to add to this fascinating thread (witchcraft is very close to my heart) except re: anti Semitism and persecution of witches:

It’s very telling that the stereotypical image of a witch (hideous, hunched, hook nosed and claw handed- see the picture that Harrop tweeted) matches pretty closely with the images of Jews put out in anti-Semitic propaganda.

Good point WhatTheWatersShowedMe!

I will be back with Spanish Inquisition and some other points and resources when I've a bit of time next week!