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In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial

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Thank you, NetGalley, Mona Chollet, and St. Martin’s Press for the opportunity to read this book. It releases on March 8th, 2022. Cynthia Enloe, Agnieszka Graff, Ratna Kapur, and Suzanna Danuta Walters Discuss Gender and the Rise of the Global Right Mona Chollet's In Defense of Witches is a celebration by an acclaimed French feminist of the witch as a symbol of female rebellion and independence in the face of misogyny and persecution. And, in a widely read book from 1967, André Soubiran, a doctor, reflected: “One wonders whether feminine psychology can accommodate freedom and the absence of men’s domination as well as we imagine.”27 What kinds of women are persecuted? It was an eye-opener to realize that I fit all three categories the author chose to examine: The Independent Woman, The Childless Woman, and I’ve recently started edging my way into the Elderly Woman. It’s no wonder I’ve felt the need to defend my lifestyle and beliefs ever since I first moved out on my own. The witch hunts have never ended, and we need to recognize that.

Witch hints in Europe started in 1400 and went through Renaissance rill 1560. The last ones were in the 18th century. Allows us to understand... the witch hunts of the past influenced the representation of women today.” — Le Monde (France)This is a translation of a previously published work in French, which makes a lot of sense as many of the author's references are French/based in Europe. Celebrated feminist writer Mona Chollet explores three types of women who were accused of witchcraft and the independent woman, since widows and celibates were particularly targeted; the childless woman, since the time of the hunts marked the end of tolerance for those who claimed to control their fertility; and the elderly woman, who has always been an object of at best, pity, and at worst, horror. Examining modern society, Chollet concludes that these women continue to be harrassed and oppressed. Rather than being a brief moment in history, the persecution of witches is an example of society’s seemingly eternal misogyny, while women today are direct descendants to those who were hunted down and killed for their thoughts and actions.

I highly recommend strongly that all women and young girls read this body of work. The author examines the archetype under our patrichael misogynist culture of the moniker "Witch" when referring to independent, , successful, talented, widowed or solitary women . If you're expecting some sort of poetic journey through the world of witchcraft, you will likely find "In Defense of Witches" a tiresome and perhaps even meandering read. Chollet, unsurprisingly for those who know her work, leans far more heavily into feminism than the fantastic and is absolutely relentless about doing so. Not allowing the fun of the imagery to distort history or appropriate other cultural traditions is something to keep in mind, especially since Chollet points out the large number of women of color who were persecuted and how much American witch-hunts were used to target the indigenous. This comes later with the topic of medicine and wellness. ‘ The witch becomes the ‘antimother,’’ Chollet writes, ‘ many of the accused were healers who played the role of midwife—but who also used to help women wishing to prevent or terminate a pregnancy.’ This was during a time women were denied access to medical school and Cholett discusses that part of their eradication was to silence anyone that wasn’t part of the academic cannon. As witchcraft ideas have started to be absorbed or co-opted into wellness communities or other natural health circles, the infiltration of white supremacy in the wellness industry is something that should also be kept in mind too, as well as trying to remember snake oil salesman use the same bad faith marketing as any other big industry so it can sometimes be difficult to parse out what is an effective alternative remedy and what is not. Chollet comes out of the gate swinging with her introduction that delves into historical witch-hunts. Offering informative statistics and a general overview on how they came about, fun details like Pope Gregory IX declaring cats the "devil's servants" and executing so many cats along with witches that the rat population grew and spread disease (subsequently blamed on witches), and examining issues such as criminalization of contraception and abortions occurring during the same period as witch-hunts. ‘ Witch-hunters are revealed as both obsessed with and terrified by female sexuality,’ she observes in her discussion of historical documents such as The Malleus Maleficarum. ‘ When for ‘witches’ we read ‘women,’ we gain fuller comprehension of the cruelties inflicted by the church upon this portion of humanity,’ said women’s activist Matilda Joslyn Gage, and while Chollet examines how men, too, were accused and murdered (though in far fewer numbers with significantly higher acquittals and tended to be accused to their intimacy with accused witches), she explains how Gage’s statement is in line with the book to come. Chollet’s introduction also serves as a criticism of the already well-trodden path of witch-hunt history books, pointing out how even those that attempt sensitivity tend to do a fair amount of victim blaming, often even asking why the groups accused of witchcraft ‘ attracted to itself the scapegoating mechanism,’ while also scapegoating any reason except for misogyny and control as to why these hunts occurred.

Magazine

For me, the history of witchcraft could equally be called the history of independence…the most troubled territories are always those that want to be independent.’

Today we often hear "witch hunt" in a variety of contexts, but none of them are remotely close to the original witch hunts, which were almost entirely focused on women — and regularly included torture, rape, and death, always at the hands of men. While we no longer burn women at the stake, some of the anti-woman sentiment at the core of witch hunts is, unfortunately, alive and healthy. As author Carmen Maria Machado says in the book's introduction, we no longer burn, hang, or drown as many women now as we did in the past, "but there is no shortage of ways women's lives continue to be destroyed. Women are abused, assaulted, economically disempowered, raped, shoved into the margins, pressured, silenced, ignored, treated as guinea pigs, co-opted, stolen from, misrepresented, forced into pregnancy or servitude, imprisoned, and, yes, sometimes murdered." Centuries after the infamous witch hunts that swept through Europe and America, witches continue to hold a unique fascination for as fairy tale villains, practitioners of pagan religion, as well as feminist icons. Witches are both the ultimate victim and the stubborn, elusive rebel. But who were the women who were accused and often killed for witchcraft? What types of women have centuries of terror censored, eliminated, and repressed? The women who were murdered in Salem in 1692 were not performing witchcraft. They were not brewing potions in cauldrons, or if they were, they were not doing so because they were calling upon the Devil to manifest ill for their neighbors. They were just doing laundry. While some of them had some manner of outsider status or may have be seen as rebels, many were simply going about the work of everyday life, like Rebecca Nurse, a 71-year-old woman who was particularly known for her piety and good nature yet was executed as a witch. The most likely thing that was going to get you accused of witchcraft was simply being a woman; you didn’t even have to be a rebel, intentionally or accidentally.Chollet, a Swiss journalist and author living and working in France, first published this book as Sorcières in French in 2018. This is its first English translation and is important for U.S. audiences' understanding of the European historical references vs. contextualized vis a vis Salem or the like. And then the book ended—this further confused me, because my electronic version showed me at 66%, and I was expecting more of a conclusion, but the remainder was footnotes. And as an embodiment of female power and resistance to male domination, what better figure than the witch? Since Chollet’s childhood, the word “has had a magnetic hold on me,” she writes. “Something about it fizzes with energy. The word speaks of a knowledge that lies close to the ground, a vital power, an accumulated force of experience that official sources disdain or repress.” I write this at a time of great peril for women, LGBT people, and sexual freedom as a whole, particularly in my country, the United States. Forces of white supremacy, patriarchy, and theocratic dogma are attempting to use the state for purposes that can be called little else than evil. While she has since been released from jail, the arrest of Lizelle Herrera under charges of murder for having an abortion portends a grim future. The first two chapters focus heavily on when women choose not to have children and how society treats this choice. The third looks at the differences between how men and women age, or how society treats them differently as they age. These sections were clear, organized, focused on the topics. I was occasionally reminded that the book was written and published in Europe, as it would refer to resources in French, and mention how things were in America.

A further problem stems from Chollet's decision to structure her book around what she claims as three "archetypes" from the witch-hunts. There is one chapter on independent women, one on women who choose not to have children and one on women “who reject the idea that to age is a terrible thing”. Chollet's contention is that, several centuries on, these same types of women are having the same charges levelled against them. While to those familiar with core feminist principles, the recitation of the value of bodily autonomy and independence might seem tedious, recent history has shown that reemphasizing these principles, especially to younger generations, is extremely important. This is something In Defense of Witches does quite well. Mona Chollet makes the case that many of the oppressive systems women face today can be seen reflected in witches, both as pop cultural figures and as historic ones. This is not to say Chollet’s book is of no interest. It starts off well, with a look at early artistic representations of witches, and goes on to link the witch-hunts with antisemitism. Chollet suggests both persecutions were a product of society’s need to find a scapegoat for its ills, pointing out that terms such as “sabbath” and “synagogue” were also used in reference to witches, while both groups were depicted with hooked noses. Rehabilitates the figure of the witch, this dangerously independent, educated and strong woman.” — Slate Through time, almost as old as history itself, women have been targeted, ostracized, blamed, and pointed at in times of uncertainty, instability, and change. Women whom have pushed the boundaries, not followed the lines, been slightly “different”, refused to follow societal constraints, or just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Some were easier to blame then others based on many situations and personalities, but nevertheless it seems to be a similar occurrence despite the culture, the time period, or the place…and the author did a great job bringing forth all of these concepts, patterns, and presenting them in a well-researched book that was fascinating, terrifying, and yet incredibly interesting read.

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Here are a few of the “villainous” things women are doing: “loving myself”, “existing unapologetically”, ”self-dates”, “drinking water and exercising”, and “treating others how they treat me”. Whilst it’s great to see women reclaim the villains of old, should we consider it radical for women to simply exist? Should we consider it radical for women to take care of their physical and mental health? Women have been so far removed from both rights and respect that to speak out and exist as individuals, they must first don the guise of a witch. This false renaissance of witches and villains may seem empowering, but it hides a deeper message - that women who put themselves first are villains in today's society, just as they were in the 1500s. The self-label of “villain” shows how deeply ingrained in society and women this notion truly is. It is not just having abortions which makes a woman a witch-like figure - simply existing can sometimes be enough to be labelled a villain. Some of the women labelled witches or villains Catalonia’s left-leaning Parliament recently passed a resolution pardoning the hundreds of women executed as witches between the 15th and 18th centuries. A similar bill is making its way through the Scottish Parliament. Both were inspired by growing outrage about historical — and contemporary — femicide and by a post-MeToo impulse to honor women who were burned, hanged or drowned as heretics. Centuries after the infamous witch hunts that swept through Europe and America, witches continue to hold a unique fascination for many: as fairy tale villains, practitioners of pagan religion, as well as feminist icons. Witches are both the ultimate victim and the stubborn, elusive rebel. But who were the women who were accused and often killed for witchcraft? What types of women have centuries of terror censored, eliminated, and repressed? This is an in depth examination of the persecution of witchcraft and its effects on the modern ways in which women encounter discrimination.

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