absolutely loveddd this piece! it’s crazy how the same “witch” accusations just got rebranded over time. women with opinions? still a problem. women with money? still suspicious. women existing without centring their lives around men? gasp, the audacity!
and that part about medicine? the fact that women's health is still treated as an afterthought because most research is done on men? that’s a modern-day witch trial in itself.
this was such a fun (and slightly rage-inducing, lol) read. it’s the perfect mix of humour and “wow, we haven’t changed at all!"
I love this subject. There is an excellent book by Stacey Shiff about the witch trials, it's an incredibly hard read. What shocked me was how actively *women* threw each other under the proverbial bus. Now, I understand it was often to save themselves, internalised misogyny is a hell of a drug etc, but I was horrified by how toxic and dangerous women were in this situation too. And anyone male or female that spoke up was accused of witchcraft!! It's wild. Totally agree with you, it still has *so much relevance* to how society operates today. Things haven't changed.
I read this one with curiosity after becoming convinced we're looking at modern day witch hunts with the social media trolling of people like Meghan Markle. And yeah: she's really pretty - a lot of women just don't like that.
In my life time women were blamed for autism (cold mothering) and schizophrenia (messages of love and hate by mom) in their children … another type of witch accusation, if you ask me
My great grandmother was a healer my grandmother had 4 husbands she buried and my mom an empath personally I often talk to spirits I would have been burned fortunately today I’m just the old broad that won’t stay in her lane thanks for the article it was great
Thank you for this informative and entertaining article. I was feeling slightly 'doomed' when I was made redundant from my job. In the past, I thought it's ok to live alone as a woman, as long as I can support myself. Then what about a woman who is alone and jobless? What would people say? Must be some collective memories of the dark past resurfacing to remind me.
"She's a Prime Minister, has no children, and her husband's a hairdresser! Witch!"
The abuse the former Australian Prime Minister endured was hideous—from opposition MPs, media outlets etc. I will never stop talking about this or writing about it.
Excellent article! I thought I remembered reading a book stating that in Sweden, those who accused others of witchcraft Would NOT get the land or property of the accused. During the “witchcraft craze” Sweden had very few cases of women being accused and prosecuted witches - take away the incentive for false accusations and the BS stops.
I read the book in high school (a very long time ago) according to Wikipedia- (looking it up on sacred google) a book by Fryekdal (SP) there were 16 cases in Sweden - 11 women and 5 men- most did not result in death- I thought I remembered that the accuser could not financially gain from the accused- but recently listening to a witch case in Scotland, (excellent video on King James’ book about Scottish witches ) sometimes the purpose of accusing was to inflict torture (a sick sense of sadism) or maintain masculine power against this “secret enemy” of the church.
This so freaking pisses me off, and I bet you it pisses off the Divine as well. I'd love a female voice to thunder worldwide from the heavens, "Cut the patriarchal shit out." Wonder what Trumpers would do then.
And, of course, Adam threw Eve under the bus. Just like all the men who threw women under the bus by voting for a known misogynistic, racist, rapist, fascist dictator in the 2024 election, because reasons.
i remember reading the crucible as a class in highschool and hearing the way all the boys talked about women fundamentally changed me. the boys i grew up with- from the time we were 4 years old- had so much disdain for women for absolutely no real reason. i can’t believe it took me that long to notice.
Freaking love this! I just got done watching Witches: The Truth Behind the Trials and I didn't fully understand the witch wound until I saw this series. Most of the people executed weren't even "witches" they were just women. They were rich, poor, wives, mothers, single, married....all kinds. And we learned to be mean girls to betray other women. We learned to get small so we could hide and not be accused of being a witch. We learned to be "perfect" for men and society. We learned a lot of stuff that we need to unlearn. What if we chose to make a difference decision? Like instead of gossiping about another woman, what if we hugged her instead of reached out with kindness? What if we shut our mouths when we wanted to judge another woman? What if we met other women with kindness? What if we just stopped giving a F and stopped playing small? What would we heal, within ourselves, our lineages of our Grandmother's, and women today if we made one small decision to do something differently than what the patriarchy programed is to be or do? What would that look like?
Yes!! Well said! My husband and I had a conversation recently about why women are so mean and judgmental towards each other. Of course, obviously the patriarchy is the main reason, but I think the how/why is largely due to the scarcity mindset that women had. We needed a man to live. We would all want the best provider which put us in competition at an early age to get him. Our mothers groomed us for this challenge...it was their main job. The whole system set us up to compete against each other to survive and for men to become greedy and want to accumulate wealth at any cost to also get the prized girl, and mistresses. It is so maddening to understand it all now and how we got here...and how things haven't really changed just evolved. I agree with you 100%...if we can relearn and stop judging each other we would be able to create a beautiful world together. As terrifying as things are right now, I am hopeful that it will bring us together and allow us to rebuild a better more inclusive world for everyone.
Isn’t it a ‘irony’ that all the “witches” found in Salem were women?
While the men (and other women) that were their accusers were never questioned about their own “sins.”
It’s like the story from their bible, where a woman is dragged before the Jesus dude and they accuse her of adultery, trying to get him to betray his truth and agree to stone her to death.
Where were the men she was accused of committing adultery WITH … why weren’t THEY drug out in front of the crowd and stoning demanded for them, too? You cannot commit adultery without another person being involved, even if SHE was the married one.
which she wasn’t btw
It’s funny, that what their book says is all the dude did was he simply bent down and began scribbling in the dirt without answering them.
If what I was shown about it is correct, dude was simply writing out the names of the guys she was accused of having committed adultery with … men that were right there, in the crowd.
And then the crowd just slunk off, quietly, shamefully, almost as if they were afraid of one another, being identified and held accountable for their ‘crimes’ and the chance of their being called out for the bullshit they were trying to pull over on him by accusing and abusing her.
Of course, when he did finish and finally stood up, the entire crowd was gone, dispersed by the ugly truths they couldn’t face.
And apparently the dude said to her “wait a second, where’d everybody go? I thought they wanted to accuse you?” “Well, hell …”
“If they aren’t gonna accuse you, neither am I, Child. Go on, get out of here, and don’t do anything that would let them try that bullshit to you again, okay?”
Ironic that women are and have always been closer to the divine that human beings are meant to be and most males are so afraid of that they try desperately to subjugate women to keep them from running a better world.
A penis is not a magic wand. And even if it’s big enough to work some magic of a lewd type the miracle of creating life beats that magic any day of any week.
There was ONE man in Salem, Giles Corey, who was slowly pressed to death (crushed) because he refused to "confess" to witchcraft in the witch trials. But he was of course the exception that only proved the rule.
absolutely loveddd this piece! it’s crazy how the same “witch” accusations just got rebranded over time. women with opinions? still a problem. women with money? still suspicious. women existing without centring their lives around men? gasp, the audacity!
and that part about medicine? the fact that women's health is still treated as an afterthought because most research is done on men? that’s a modern-day witch trial in itself.
this was such a fun (and slightly rage-inducing, lol) read. it’s the perfect mix of humour and “wow, we haven’t changed at all!"
about medicine - absolutely! Also true that male-medicine literally threw away the herbal knowledge of female-medicine. To everyone's detriment.
I love this subject. There is an excellent book by Stacey Shiff about the witch trials, it's an incredibly hard read. What shocked me was how actively *women* threw each other under the proverbial bus. Now, I understand it was often to save themselves, internalised misogyny is a hell of a drug etc, but I was horrified by how toxic and dangerous women were in this situation too. And anyone male or female that spoke up was accused of witchcraft!! It's wild. Totally agree with you, it still has *so much relevance* to how society operates today. Things haven't changed.
I read this one with curiosity after becoming convinced we're looking at modern day witch hunts with the social media trolling of people like Meghan Markle. And yeah: she's really pretty - a lot of women just don't like that.
In my life time women were blamed for autism (cold mothering) and schizophrenia (messages of love and hate by mom) in their children … another type of witch accusation, if you ask me
My great grandmother was a healer my grandmother had 4 husbands she buried and my mom an empath personally I often talk to spirits I would have been burned fortunately today I’m just the old broad that won’t stay in her lane thanks for the article it was great
Thank you for this informative and entertaining article. I was feeling slightly 'doomed' when I was made redundant from my job. In the past, I thought it's ok to live alone as a woman, as long as I can support myself. Then what about a woman who is alone and jobless? What would people say? Must be some collective memories of the dark past resurfacing to remind me.
Well, looks like we have ourselves a little coven here in the comments. Yay :)
"She's a Prime Minister, has no children, and her husband's a hairdresser! Witch!"
The abuse the former Australian Prime Minister endured was hideous—from opposition MPs, media outlets etc. I will never stop talking about this or writing about it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-46264594
Same sick crap was dumped on Kamala Harris.
Makes me vomit
I know, right? And too many people fell for it, to the detriment of society at large.
Excellent article! I thought I remembered reading a book stating that in Sweden, those who accused others of witchcraft Would NOT get the land or property of the accused. During the “witchcraft craze” Sweden had very few cases of women being accused and prosecuted witches - take away the incentive for false accusations and the BS stops.
Interesting. What book was that? I was under the impression that Sweden had plenty of such cases, but I could be wrong.
I read the book in high school (a very long time ago) according to Wikipedia- (looking it up on sacred google) a book by Fryekdal (SP) there were 16 cases in Sweden - 11 women and 5 men- most did not result in death- I thought I remembered that the accuser could not financially gain from the accused- but recently listening to a witch case in Scotland, (excellent video on King James’ book about Scottish witches ) sometimes the purpose of accusing was to inflict torture (a sick sense of sadism) or maintain masculine power against this “secret enemy” of the church.
Thank you
"Because duh, Eve and that stupid apple."
This so freaking pisses me off, and I bet you it pisses off the Divine as well. I'd love a female voice to thunder worldwide from the heavens, "Cut the patriarchal shit out." Wonder what Trumpers would do then.
And, of course, Adam threw Eve under the bus. Just like all the men who threw women under the bus by voting for a known misogynistic, racist, rapist, fascist dictator in the 2024 election, because reasons.
Falling off my chair laughing...well...it is sad it's still true. What a great bunch of voices here!
Fuc*#@* apple my "ass". They have the devil between their legs!
i remember reading the crucible as a class in highschool and hearing the way all the boys talked about women fundamentally changed me. the boys i grew up with- from the time we were 4 years old- had so much disdain for women for absolutely no real reason. i can’t believe it took me that long to notice.
I'm reposting this all over the world. (Okay, my world is pretty small, but still.) Thank you for putting this together. I reposted over on bluesky. Hope you don't mind: https://bsky.app/profile/meganlandonauthor.bsky.social/post/3lifli4vurk2c
Freaking love this! I just got done watching Witches: The Truth Behind the Trials and I didn't fully understand the witch wound until I saw this series. Most of the people executed weren't even "witches" they were just women. They were rich, poor, wives, mothers, single, married....all kinds. And we learned to be mean girls to betray other women. We learned to get small so we could hide and not be accused of being a witch. We learned to be "perfect" for men and society. We learned a lot of stuff that we need to unlearn. What if we chose to make a difference decision? Like instead of gossiping about another woman, what if we hugged her instead of reached out with kindness? What if we shut our mouths when we wanted to judge another woman? What if we met other women with kindness? What if we just stopped giving a F and stopped playing small? What would we heal, within ourselves, our lineages of our Grandmother's, and women today if we made one small decision to do something differently than what the patriarchy programed is to be or do? What would that look like?
Yes!! Well said! My husband and I had a conversation recently about why women are so mean and judgmental towards each other. Of course, obviously the patriarchy is the main reason, but I think the how/why is largely due to the scarcity mindset that women had. We needed a man to live. We would all want the best provider which put us in competition at an early age to get him. Our mothers groomed us for this challenge...it was their main job. The whole system set us up to compete against each other to survive and for men to become greedy and want to accumulate wealth at any cost to also get the prized girl, and mistresses. It is so maddening to understand it all now and how we got here...and how things haven't really changed just evolved. I agree with you 100%...if we can relearn and stop judging each other we would be able to create a beautiful world together. As terrifying as things are right now, I am hopeful that it will bring us together and allow us to rebuild a better more inclusive world for everyone.
Isn’t it a ‘irony’ that all the “witches” found in Salem were women?
While the men (and other women) that were their accusers were never questioned about their own “sins.”
It’s like the story from their bible, where a woman is dragged before the Jesus dude and they accuse her of adultery, trying to get him to betray his truth and agree to stone her to death.
Where were the men she was accused of committing adultery WITH … why weren’t THEY drug out in front of the crowd and stoning demanded for them, too? You cannot commit adultery without another person being involved, even if SHE was the married one.
which she wasn’t btw
It’s funny, that what their book says is all the dude did was he simply bent down and began scribbling in the dirt without answering them.
If what I was shown about it is correct, dude was simply writing out the names of the guys she was accused of having committed adultery with … men that were right there, in the crowd.
And then the crowd just slunk off, quietly, shamefully, almost as if they were afraid of one another, being identified and held accountable for their ‘crimes’ and the chance of their being called out for the bullshit they were trying to pull over on him by accusing and abusing her.
Of course, when he did finish and finally stood up, the entire crowd was gone, dispersed by the ugly truths they couldn’t face.
And apparently the dude said to her “wait a second, where’d everybody go? I thought they wanted to accuse you?” “Well, hell …”
“If they aren’t gonna accuse you, neither am I, Child. Go on, get out of here, and don’t do anything that would let them try that bullshit to you again, okay?”
Ironic that women are and have always been closer to the divine that human beings are meant to be and most males are so afraid of that they try desperately to subjugate women to keep them from running a better world.
A penis is not a magic wand. And even if it’s big enough to work some magic of a lewd type the miracle of creating life beats that magic any day of any week.
And twice on Sundays for sure!
There was ONE man in Salem, Giles Corey, who was slowly pressed to death (crushed) because he refused to "confess" to witchcraft in the witch trials. But he was of course the exception that only proved the rule.
The more things change, the more they stay the same....
I want to shout “not all men”. But I’m outnumbered by all men. Sadly you are right. My gender sucks.
Your gender doesn’t suck. Just some of them did. But you know what? There are women who suck, too. :)