Witches v Wizards

[DtPeabodysLoosePants]

Chatting with dd(12) tonight and explaining to her that lesbians are being told they need to accept lady dick (I didn't use this phrase though!) and if not they are Transphobes and that men who say they are women are calling themselves lesbians but are heterosexually attracted. I was given her best WTF face and then she moved quickly on as she does to ask me this:

Why are witches viewed as bad but wizards are seen as good?

Answer: the patriarchy. But it's really made me think of how women throughout history have been persecuted and oppressed.

We saw a re-enactment of Joan of Arc's execution at Warwick castle and it reduced me to tears. It was a real eye opener for me to see it acted out rather than just read the history. But yes, it all boils down to the oppression of women as it was ever thus.

I bought her a couple of age appropriate feminist books a while ago and am doing my best to raise her as a feminist with excellent boundaries.

How did this all start? When did men decide they were in charge?

Men have always sought to control women for the very simple reason that we know out babies are ours whereas they have to take our word for it. It's basic jealousy that we have control over the one thing that matters most.

It is unsurprising that many 'witches' were midwives, herbalists etc. These persecutions began at a time when many of the priesthood were poorly educated and had little of substance to offer the communities they served. Of course they thought the cunny women, with their practical abilities, were a threat to them. And of course the people of the time used the church's insecurities as a convenient excuse to settle scores or for personal gain, that's human nature.

Scotland's high number of persecutions in the early modern period appears, from what I've read, to be a result of James VI's political maneuvering. It seems he was influenced by a visit to Denmark where witch hunts were already common place. While this led to an abnormally high level of persecutions in the late 16th and 17th centuries I'm not sure that applies across the whole period of witch persecutions, from 1200 onwards. Furthermore the vast majority of cases in Scotland occurred in the populated lowlands, not the more remote highlands, so I'm not convinced that being more remote from authority was a factor.

Men have always sought to control women for the very simple reason that we know out babies are ours whereas they have to take our word for it. It's basic jealousy that we have control over the one thing that matters most.

I think it was Terrance McKenna who proposed the idea of prehistoric mushroom rituals and orgies being the basis for tribal procreation, whereby the the women knew the origins of the child and who they came from, while the men did not. Trouble strated the day a man looked at one of the women and her children and said "mine".

If you replace the word wizard with priest, keepers of knowledge and sacred practices, then it makes more sense that we traditionally have more males, as they would have followed a similar type; privileged males from privileged families who had the means by which a person could dedicate their lives to their craft. Women, as it's been noted, would have been consumed by day to day health, maturnity and survival, much like the poorer males who would have been concerned with hunting or farming. History has placed greater value on the 'sacred knowledge' of wizards and priests, probably due to having the resources to make a written record, whereas the witchcraft followed an oral tradition. Plus y'know, all the woman hating.

If you replace the word wizard with priest, keepers of knowledge and sacred practices, then it makes more sense that we traditionally have more males

Yes, that seems the case, especially in light of the golden hats which suggest a collective memory of earlier ritual practise that has been retained down the ages in folklore.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_hat

In terms of fiction, it really depends on the authors. In terms of history, it was easy to scapegoat unpopular women (or women who threatened male power) as witches to either get rid of them or explain things that science hadn't yet come up with an answer for. For example, Anne Boleyn was accused of witchcraft in part because of her miscarriages, which were probably caused by being Rh-negative, something we now routinely diagnose and treat to prevent recurrent miscarriage. It was easy and plausible to accuse the unpopular Protestant Queen of using sorcery to deny the King an heir than it was to suggest there was an (unknown) natural explanation.

@IfNot because trans ideology is being taught at school and she's confused. She's struggling with being expected by society to be nice and kind and inclusive and developing her boundaries and knowing that what is happening is harmful to girls and women. Whatever she asks about I try and explain as best I can to her. Knowledge is power after all.

I'm glad I started this thread as I'm learning things and that always makes me happy

Also, the advent of the printing press allowed for the widespread distribution of the witch-hunting manual, the Malleus Maleficarum- which was the second most popular book after the Bible and laid out detailed legal and theological reasons why witches should be prosecuted as well as the handy, practical 'how-to' stuff.

Wizards aren’t all good - in Lord of the Rings Gandalf was the only truly good wizard. In Harry Potter roughly 50-60% of the wizards mentioned were evil - far more than the witches who were mostly good.

Traditionally witches are both male and female and typically lower class and based on the male and female healers every village had back in the day. Wizards are a mythical royal class of magician (e.g. Merlin).

Although we hear and read a lot about persecution of witches or wise women, this is from the point of view of the history book with a strong influence of the church.

I think the man-and-woman-in-the-street opinion of these wise women, healers, herbalists, etc, was respect. For most peasants (which was most people throughout history) these women would have been their only source of healing or folk knowledge (old wives tales we might call them today).

We tend to look at how these women were treated through the lens of the professional (male) classes, but I believe they were mostly respected and honoured by everyday men and women alike. Just not the men in power.

And "old wives tale" itself is a more modern insult to what would have been regarded as the standard of care of the time!

It's also ironic that wizardry became divided by sex, as the first widely acknowledged wizard in countless mystical sects, is the anchient Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus, from who we get the term hermaphrodite, largely because by tradition it was either unknown, undermined or concealed what sex and social gender he was. This to me always implied that wizardry was never meant to be the preserve of one sex or the other, but rather a shared experience for whoever was ready and worthy. Of course all subsequent depictions and mythical embodiments of Hermes subsequently went with male visuals.

Loving this fascinating thread! Are there any books about witches in history that anyone would care to recommend?

*@deydododatdodontdeydo *

We tend to look at how these women were treated through the lens of the professional (male) classes, but I believe they were mostly respected and honoured by everyday men and women alike. Just not the men in power.

Absolutely! I think this is why they were persecuted. To get rid of the strong wise women to increase male power and especially to facilitate men's entry into birthing and healing which were female domains. People just preferred women if they were sick. So they were killed so male physicians had a shot. It's so simple to see how it panned out.

I enjoyed this one. Though it is quite American-centric I found the broad historic background and parallels to modern 'witch-hunts' interesting

www.amazon.co.uk/Enemy-Within-Short-History-Witch-Hunting/dp/0143116339/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&keywords=enemy+within+john+demos&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&qid=1563365406&sr=1-1

Lisa lister....witch.

I'm going to treat myself to malleus malificarum as I heard of it first during my psychology degree. I was fascinated then but more so now.

sakura184

The same story with midwives and gynecologysts. Who does a woman go to if she is pregnant or has issues affecting women that the village elder (female), healer, wise woman, etc. In some parts of the world they still do.
But with the rise of professional doctors (men) and medicine (men), these tasks were taken from women (I'm not aware of a wide scale killing spree though!).
I suppose it was the 18th/19th C that this happened.

And now we see more women returning to doulas and birth partners and the like, borrowing from other cultures in lots of ways, because in our culture this was wiped out.

Ronald Hutton - The Witch

www.amazon.co.uk/Witch-History-Ancient-Times-Present/dp/0300238673/ref=sr_1_1?hvlocphy=1006858&hvnetw=g&keywords=the+witch+ronald+hutton&hvadid=259203865847&qid=1563370907&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIg8CTu4q84wIVCbTtCh3tAA9wEAAYASAAEgKcE_D_BwE&s=gateway&hydadcr=11905_1790654&hvpos=1t1&hvdev=c&hvqmt=e&tag=mumsnetforu03-21&hvtargid=kwd-316748727590&adgrpid=53292706796&hvrand=17388803472493842015&sr=8-1

There's also a low budget British film from about 1978 called Rapunzle Let Down Your Hair, which although very dated, takes an interesting look at the Rapunzle story and depictions of witchcraft from several feminist viewpoints. You could view it on the BFI website a few years ago, not sure if it's still there.

Scotland's high number of persecutions in the early modern period appears, from what I've read, to be a result of James VI's political maneuvering. It seems he was influenced by a visit to Denmark where witch hunts were already common place. While this led to an abnormally high level of persecutions in the late 16th and 17th centuries I'm not sure that applies across the whole period of witch persecutions, from 1200 onwards. Furthermore the vast majority of cases in Scotland occurred in the populated lowlands, not the more remote highlands, so I'm not convinced that being more remote from authority was a factor.

The main factors were being distant from the authority of the Church, and also Protestantism was more likely to be really pro-witch hunting.

The catholic Church's embrace of which hunting was always very half-hearted. One of the differences between ancient paganism and ancient Christianity was the former believed in magic and witches, and the latter didn't. Belief in witches and witchcraft was outlawed, even considered heretical. It wasn't until the late medieval period that the idea developed that maybe witches could get some kinds of powers through being in league with the devil, and it was never wholly embraced, or even enthusiastically embraced. Educated priests, and particularly the kind often depicted in pop literature and films as going around to root out heresy, in general didn't believe that witches existed and thought those that did were deluded.
Very few witch trials were even conducted legally.

I thought the origin of the witch craze was partly a misunderstanding of the bible phrase "thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."

I think there are a lot of optimists on this thread. Yes, there are evil wizards, yes it's a mixed bunch, blah blah blah. But go and ask the average person on the street about their perceptions of wizard and witch, and I bet you anything you like that more will go on about the wisdom and ancient hallowed knowledge of silver-haired wizards than will find anything positive to say about witches. It's bad enough to be a woman, let alone an old one. It would be an interesting survey to carry out actually! I wonder if the Terry Pratchett effect would still be in force (I loved his witches).

Some of the victims of the witch craze were victimised maliciously to obtain wealth, or so I've heard. Others were targeted because they were deemed 'mentally ill', living on the edges of society, and women are not permitted to be anything other than mainstream. Perhaps occasionally to cover up male wrong-doing and regrets around sexual activity too (the inverse of male rape myths).

I dont think men understood menstrual cycles and womens understandings of their bodies and power.

A lot of men don't want to understand. A lot of them view menstruation as disgusting, and us too by extension. Look at India and its taboo problem, most visibly, but the same attitudes crop up repeatedly when talking to males, young and old, here.

Thanks for the book recommends :)

In fantasy lit I would say the big difference is that often (not always) witches, and their male equivalent in warlocks, are defined as being in league with dark forces. So kind of bad by definition. Whereas wizards, seem to be harnessing some kind of neutral, natural but mysterious force for either good or evil, depending on their personality.

That's going to be down to the author in the end and what they find useful for their story.