In Western societies, witches often play the villain and are treated in stories and popular culture as synonymous with malevolent forces. Mythologies, tales and treaties commonly portray witches as capable of inflicting cruelty upon those around them (and even for their fondness for eating or stealing the souls of children!). Notably, witchcraft is now almost exclusively associated with women and "feminine" powers, even though, across history, numerous men have been tried and executed for supposedly practicing magic. In more recent decades, popular culture and activist groups have re-imagined witches as victims of religious hysteria and/or as symbols of resistance against patriarchy, religion and the state.
An examination of witches’ evolving symbolic and cultural value demonstrates how patriarchal and misogynistic views have resulted in the “othering” of “witch” figures who challenge social norms.
This exhibit explores historical narratives relating to women and witchcraft. Highlighted by materials from the Archives and Special Collections, this history spans rare books to recently digitized audiovisual recordings, from the 15th to the 21st century.
THE WICKED WITCH: A HISTORY OF PERSECUTION
The concept of a witch as someone evil and maleficent—a person who causes harm to others by mystical means—was popularized in Europe as being diabolical in nature and therefore anti-religious, during the late Middle Ages to the early Renaissance. During most of the medieval period, while Western societies believed, or were skeptical, that magic and witches were real, the figure of the witch was usually considered to be helpful or harmless, or else relegated to a superstition. Importantly, there was an established distinction between magic and miracles in Christianity, and though both women and men were accused of using harmful magic for heretical purposes (e.g., Joan of Arc, the Cathars, Jews, and other minority groups…), it was not until the sixteenth century that tensions surrounding witchcraft reached a crisis point.
During the Renaissance, there was a growing interest among humanists (and Church officials) in the history and origins of magic. The Catholic Church, however, was generally swift to condemn interest these practices, and several prominent clerics would help to transform witchcraft and magic from a mere pseudoscience or localized folkloric belief, into practices associated with demonic persuasion. The fourteenth century saw an increase of sorcery trials, which made the use of magic, regardless of a practitioner's intentions, inherently evil, thus condemning a number of practices such as astrology, divination, charm making, and medical practice. Soon, the trial of "magic users" was less about seeking justice for individual offenders and instead about purging the community of evil.
Historians now agree that the phenomenon of the "witch hunts" was the result of major socio-economic, political and religious change in Europe prior to the onset of the Early Modern Period. A sustained practice of witch hunts was for the most part a European and Euro-American phenomenon. The most intense period of the witch hunts (see also “the witch trials” or “the witch craze”) is considered to have reached its height between 1560 and 1650, a period precipitated by a century of technological and religious change.
“All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which in women is insatiable… Wherefore the sake of fulfilling their lusts they consort with devils… it is sufficiently clear that there are more women than men found infected with the heresy of witchcraft… And Blessed be the Highest Who has far preserved the male sex from so great a crime.” - Malleus Maleficarum (Hammer of Witches).
Some of the people primarily responsible for the mobilization against witches before the early modern period, were clerics. Most notable was Heinreich Kramer, often known by his Latin name, Henricus Institoris, a Dominican clergyman and Church Inquisitor (whose job was to prosecute heresy). The publication of his work, Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of the Witches) in 1486/7 was an important turning point in the perception of witches and witchcraft in Europe. Though part of the period’s religious literary corpus on demonology, it was not a sanctioned publication by the Catholic Church. Nevertheless, using church dogma (such as the well-known Old Testament verse, Exodus 22:18: “thou shalt not suffer a witch to live”) Kramer elevated "folkloric" witchcraft to a charge of heresy—one that is punishable by death.
The Malleus is remarkably brutal and misogynistic, even for its time. It contains instructions for inquisitors on how to methodically torture people accused of witchcraft in order to gain a confession. And it argues that women, being weaker-minded than men, are more vulnerable to the devil's temptations; weakness that must be rooted out and punished. Notably even its title, maleficarum, is in the Latin feminine, as opposed to the masculine form of maleficus (witch): maleficorum.
> Malleus Maleficarum - BF 1569 .A2I4 1576. Attributed to Jakob Sprenger (an error, as the main author is now thought to be to Institoris [Heinrich Kramer]. First published 1486/7, this Latin edition (Raffaello Maffei, editor), was printed 1576 in Venice by Antonio Bertano. The Venice Editions (1574-1579) were the First "Hammer of Witches" to be published in over a fifty-year break of printings, and the first to print Sprenger as the sole author (an error that would be continued until the 1580s). Second only to the Bible in popularity, the Malleus was a bestseller for well over a century and went through several editions and translations.
The popularity of the Malleus and other similar “witch treaties” was heightened by the printing press and its ability to rapidly and cheaply disseminate ideas. Combined with growing fear, intolerance, and hatred across Europe, including the acceptance of barbaric practices to seek out confessions through torture, the Witch Trials were well underway by the sixteenth century. By the 1550s, witch trials took place more often in secular courts than in religious ones (apart from the Spanish Inquisition). Witchcraft became a crime under the law, and witches were prosecuted by the state (e.g., in England witchcraft became a crime in 1542, and was renewed by statute in 1562 and 1604).
> Del Rio, Martin Antoine. Disqvisitionvm magicarvm [BF 1600 .D5 1599] - an encyclopedic manual on dealing with magic, alchemy, witchcraft, prophecies and apparitions, with instructions for judges to try its users, first published in 1599. Del Rio was considered an authority on witchcraft during the height of sixteenth century persecutions. His work is both an amalgamation of his studies, as well as a reflection of the society in which it was written.
The mass hysteria for witch trials resulted in the death of innumerable victims. While the accounts of judges and inquisitors are numerous, few to no records exist about those who were tried for witchcraft, which represents the loss of important historical context. Not all publications relating to witchcraft trials treated women with the same prejudice as the Malleus, but women were especially targeted. Christian doctrine and its application in patriarchal western society supported the belief that women were morally weak and thus more likely to succumb to diabolical temptation. To avoid this fate, women needed to be submissive to men and God, and those who were not submissive to their prescribed role were the targets of fear and contempt.
By the latter half of the seventeenth century, there was growing unrest and unease around the trials and executions of persons accused of witchcraft and some laws began to change. Notably the 1692 Salem Witch Trials were some of the latest major witch hunts in the West. At first, monarchs and governments passed laws prohibiting executions (e.g., the 1682 decree issued by Louis XIV prohibiting women accused of witchcraft from being sentenced to death in France), but it was not until the eighteenth century that many witchcraft laws were officially repealed. The number of those accused decreased, and over time the accused were treated with skepticism, even if confessions were offered. By the 1740s, witch-hunting was no longer a common phenomenon in the West, as societal changes in Europe and its colonies dismantled beliefs in witchcraft and relegated them once again to folklore. Those who were accused and executed came to be viewed more widely with sympathy, as the victims of an outdated mindset.
< Naudé G.’s “Apologie pour tous les grands hommes qui ont esté accusz de magie (Apology for all the great men who have been accused of magic)” [BF 1597 .N3 1669] is one example of many texts published to challenge views towards witchcraft and women. Though some challenges were mounted in the 15th century, it was only in the 17th that prevailing beliefs about witches would shift, partially in response to rising religious skepticism and the scientific revolution.
In the end, around 30,000–60,000 people were executed in the whole of the main era of witchcraft persecutions, from the 1427–36 witch-hunts in Savoy (in the western Alps) to the execution of Anna Goldi in the Swiss canton of Glarus in 1782. These figures include estimates for cases where no records survive or exist. A far greater number of people were accused of witchcraft and not executed; it is estimated, for example, that only 25% of those tried across England were found guilty.
"Since every historical event has been reported to us by a cultural elite, we know about witches only through the eyes of their executioners." - Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, "Witches, Midwives, and Nurses : a History of Women Healers" (1973)
The Witch: A Victim?
In the centuries that followed, many of those accused and executed as witches were viewed with sympathy. By the nineteenth century, influenced by works like Satanism and Witchcraft (originally published as La Sorcière in 1862) by Jules Michelet, women’s rights advocates such as Matilda Joslyn Gage (an American writer and women’s suffrage activist), helped to promote the cultural understanding of witches as victims of circumstance. The witch trials came to be perceived as the result of the deep-rooted fears that men felt towards the “the other” (those not in power and therefore at risk when men sought to prove themselves worthy of their own societal superiority).
By the 1970s, the witch was thus predominantly seen as a victim for whom justice should be sought. The historical reconsideration of the phenomenon of witch-hunting fed into feminist discourse and has been integrated into contemporary ideological and political spaces. Women seeking to challenge coercive patriarchal authority were profoundly impacted by descriptions of the tortures wrought on innocent women who were condemned during the era of witch trials. Contemporary feminists believed the Malleus Maleficarum was the preeminent guide for witch-hunting, and its harsh treatment of women was a poignant reminder of what those accused endured (while this is in fact a historical inaccuracy, the Malleus was undoubtedly significant in impacting other texts and practices). For many feminists, the witch trial hysteria amounted to nothing less than a war on women.
Whether or not the "witch craze" constituted a war on women, trials against witchcraft certainly proved to be an effective tool of gendered control. In fact, 75 to 90% of victims are thought to have been women. Only in Scandinavian countries were men accused in slight majority.
> Midnight Hags Theatre - 1983. Canadian Women's Movement Archives 10-001-S1-F1726
By 1990, the status of witches as victims was furthered with the release of the documentary The Burning Times by Studio D, the feminist section of the National Film Board in Canada. The film is described as offering "an in-depth examination of the witch hunts that swept Europe a few hundred years ago."
It was widely acclaimed by feminist groups for recounting the consequences of patriarchal control, though it was also the subject of much controversy after its release, including a complaint by the Catholic Civil Rights League to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission. Many viewers also questioned the historical accuracies presented in the film, such as the number of women supposed to have been executed after being accused of witchcraft and the premise that the trials were the result of a patriarchal medical establishment conspiring against women.
< Burning Times is part of the Women and Spirituality series, which also includes the documentaries Goddess Remembered (1989): a rediscovery of goddess-focused religions of the past; and Full Circle (1993): the spiritual manifestations of contemporary women writers, teachers and activists in the West.
Not all feminist historians viewed witches as victims. Diane Purkiss took issue with this interpretation in her 1996 book, The Witch in History: Early Modern and Twentieth-Century Representations. She suggests that, for second-wave feminists who narrated the witch trials: "Having a reputation for witchcraft is seen as something that is done to a woman, not seen as something they do...” and proposed that we should instead consider that some of these women had agency, stating:“... [the] women involved with witchcraft entered vigorously into a struggle to control the meaning of their own lives" [p.145]
Whether or not women in history were victims or historical agents has been the subject of many nuances discussions for feminist historians. In 2004, the American philosopher Siliva Federici explored the effects of capitalism on women's bodies in her book: Caliban and the Witch. She explained how, from the fifteenth century onwards, women were transformed into mere "machine wombs", dedicated to the production of a new workforce. Witch-hunting, she argued, was a means of disciplining women's bodies, and she pointed to the vilification of female sexuality in the Malleus and other treatises as evidence of this attempt to control women’s choices.
More recent examinations of the witch-hunts have taken the view that its victims were not simply vilified because of their gender or sex, but rather due to a combination of social factors such age, class, race, disability, religious belonging, and more. Older poor women, particularly widows and single women, were among those most frequently accused during the period of witch trials. If a woman was old, if she had never been married, if she possessed knowledge that a man did not – she may have found herself living beyond the boundaries of acceptable behaviour; and while this may be allowed during times of peace, times of hardship made it far more likely that the blame would be laid at her door.
THE WITCH AND AGING
In Japanese and Russian folklore older, women often played a more positive role. And in Cuban folklore, older women were the transmitters of cultural and social values. Western mythologies and folklore, however, have more often depicted older women as archetypally evil and dangerous. Deeply embedded cultural stereotypes or norms result in the demonization of older women with labels such as “hag,”, “crone” and “witch,” which are associated almost exclusively with women’s ageing.
Sontag, Susan. “The Double Standard of Aging.” In The Other Within Us, 1st ed., 19–24. Routledge, 1997. HQ 1061 .O87 1997
In Western medieval literature, where men often had greater access to writing and printing, historical records reflect creators’ biases, including their mistrust of older women and especially of independent older women and/or those living on the margins of society. Fables and stories enshrine older women as morally reprehensible and physically unappealing, including the trickster “hag” in Chaucer’s Wife of Bath’s Tale (1388-1396). Renaissance writers also linked older women’s physical appearance to supposed evil and malevolence. Although the exact number of older women accused of witchcraft in the late Middle Ages and Renaissance periods is unknown, textual records and witness accounts support the notion that older women were among those mostly commonly persecuted for charges of witchcraft.
Article - Levine, Helen - ''The Crones'', 1982. Helen Levine fonds. 10-006-S2-10-006-S2-SS1-F15
Cultural distrust of older women and ingrained misogyny have also been transmitted across the centuries, including in Grimm’s fairytales and illustrations in children’s books, down to advent of animation and film. The image of the witch as an ugly crone continues to represent ageist prejudice and patriarchal values. More recently, the multi-billion-dollar anti-ageing industry with its exclusively female target demographic demonstrates the double standards in ageing that persist today.
Feminist scholar Germaine Greer suggests the stereotypical “old hag” figure of the mid-19th century is linked to Victorian views of menopause, which pathologized the process and characterized menopause as, “the death of the womb.”
Late 20th century feminists have worked to re-appropriate the “hag” or “crone” label through both anti-ageist activism and female spiritual practice. In the 1980s, for example, both old and young women identified with the “crone” figure to de-stigmatize stereotypes of older women. Feminist groups like “The Midnight Hags Theatre productions” and “Hags and Crones” reclaimed terms that were intended as derogatory.
Women addressed perceptions on ageing through rebellious anti-ageist and rebellious groups such as, “Growing Old Disgracefully: Networking for Older Women” and “Raging Grannies.” The Midnight Hags Theatre group staged the play “Burning Times,” exposing conditions that led to mass witch trials.
> Raging Grannies - 1997-2009 - Ethel Lisbeth Donaldson fonds 10-100-F8
Founded first in Victoria, British Columbia, in 1987, the Raging Grannies are groups of activist grandmothers who wished to challenge preconceptions of aging women. They protest playfully through their clothes and songs. Deeply anti-militaristic, they campaign for the environment, social justice and against gender-based violence.
Some scholars and feminists embrace the “crone” label as a symbol of Neopagan and/or Wiccan religions. The “crone,” figure represents one part of the Triple Goddess, a deity that encompasses Maiden, Mother, and Crone. This belief system links stages in women’s life to religious processes, deifying the aging process, and promoting a wholistic construct of women’s lives that symbolically overthrows the patriarchal desire to control women's minds and bodies.
Photo of the Hags and Crones - 1980. Canadian Women’s Movement Archives Collection. 10-001-S3-I508
The Witch: Healer, Midwife, Wise-Woman
& the gradual exclusion of women from modern medicine?
Second-wave feminists also re-appropriated the figure of the witch, investing her with the role of herbalist, healer and/or midwife (see also cunning-woman), whose traditional knowledge is understood have been sidelined from modern medicine in favor of an essentially male medical authority.
The book "Witches, Midwives and Nurses" played an important role in the development of this emblematic figure. Published in 1973 by biologist Barbara Ehrenreich and sociologist Deirdre English, it is a veritable manifesto, fueling the belief that women persecuted during the Renaissance witch trials were predominantly healers and midwives who were discredited, even criminalized, following the spread of the Malleus Maleficarum. Long considered suspicious and dangerous, the so-called witch was supposed to have been the holder of knowledge related to fertility, plant pharmacopoeia and childbirth. This occult and often taboo knowledge, pertaining to the "women's sphere", was considered inappropriate by modern medicine.
< Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English, "Witches, Midwives, and Nurses : a History of Women Healers" (Second Edition. Old Westbury, N.Y: The Feminist Press, 1973). The book examines the way in which the expertise of women healers was continually discredited and even criminalized following the fifteenth century.
This popular "witch as healer" theory has been repeatedly reinforced by second-wave feminists. For example, Donna Read's film The Burning Times also sought to demonstrate how the phenomenon of witch-hunting had contributed to the exclusion of traditional medical knowledge held by women. The trials were cast as a means of punishing women who deviated from expected gender roles.
The historical approaches adopted by the authors and perpetuated by feminists have been the subject of much criticism from historians. For instance, midwives were not the most accused, and the historical record attests that some women working as healers and/or midwives actually assisted accusers in searching for witch-marks (marks on the body of a witch which indicate a pact with the devil). Women as healers did play an essential role in medicine during the period of witch-hunting; as medical historian Mary E. Fissel once said “Almost everyone in early modern Europe was brought into the world by women and ushered out of it by women”. Historians thus took issue with some feminists' exaggeration or outright invention in an effort to use historical precedent as support present-day concerns.
Nevertheless, Ehrenreich and English’s text has the merit of raising fundamental questions that are still current in our society: what are the origins of gender stereotypes rooted in Western society, and what are the causes of a lack of representation of women in scientific fields, particularly medicine?
Feminist theses appropriating the figure of the witch as healer or midwife resonated strongly with the women's health movement, whose demands focused on women's re-appropriation of their bodies, sexuality, and fertility, particularly in the face of male-dominated modern medicine. During the 1970s and 1980s, the male-dominated, Westernized and professionalized approach to medicine was challenged, as were the ambitions and prerogatives of modern science. Alternative forms of knowledge emerged within feminist groups. Groups calling themselves "modern-day witches" were organized to autonomously take charge of their health, thus circumventing the male hegemony of medical knowledge. A counter-model to modern medicine, their practices were based on dialogue, experience, and their close, renewed contact with the elements of nature.
"Witches heal" Button - n.d. Pamela Andrew Fonds. 10-067-F12-I3
WITCHES AND SPIRITUALITY
"The witch is the one who enjoys, dances, moves and invents freely; she expresses a feminine creativity that is impossible to constrain and, in this sense, should inspire writers and artists who recognise themselves in her". Xavière Gauthier in Sorcières magazine, Paris, 1976 (2-5).
Another popular misconception about the witch trials is that the accused were pagans or goddess-worshipers. A number of historians and public figures, both men and women, advocated for this belief beginning in the nineteenth century.
In 1893, Mathilda Joslyn Gage (a first-wave feminist involved in women’s suffrage) argued that women executed during the witch trials were pagan priestesses who practiced ancient religious veneration of a Great Goddess [see Woman, Church and State, 1893]. This was furthered around the early-twentieth century by archeologist, folklorist and feminist activist, Margaret Murray, who developed the witch-cult theory (the Murrayite theory), in which she posited that the early modern witch trials were the reaction of authorities to the continuation of pre-Christian pagan traditions. While these theories have been challenged and dismantled by historians (there was no ‘real’ pagan witchcraft in the trials and only some residual paganism in a notably select few) this representation was deeply impactful in the following century’s remaking of the "witch" as an important cultural figure.
Renewed interest in spirituality and mysticism in Europe and North America during the nineteenth century invigorated interest in the occult, including witches, pagan gods, astrology and a myriad of other subjects. Though women's liberation is often examined as a secular movement, it is also linked to esoteric developments like Spiritualism, Theosophy, and Paganism. By the 1960s, when feminists called for withdrawal from religious institutions (which were perceived as sanctifying the patriarchy, they were able to seek out alternative female-centered religion. Women instead found themselves able to lead services in sects, unburdened by centuries of misogynistic texts. Instead, they practiced and constructed beliefs that embraced and celebrated womanhood.
Throughout the twentieth century, feminist groups adopted language and iconography which prioritized the feminine expression of the sacred, as they reinterpreted and redefined the witch and divine femininity. Importantly, divine femininity focuses on feminine energy while rejecting patriarchal traditionalism.
Numerous publications from the period, as well as the establishment of workshops and discussion groups, testify to the emergence of new feminine spiritualities, and a desire among women to express themselves and share their experience with others.
< Cover page. Special Issue : Religion. Canadian Woman Studies / Les cahiers de la femme. 1983 (Vol. 5, no.2, winter 1983). HQ 1181 .C2 C3
Canadian Woman Studies published a special issue on religions in 1983. In this issue, Morel d'Armour, author of the article "Sorcellerie vit" (p.62-64), describes her encounter with a group of witches in British Columbia. This encounter was a trigger for her exploration of another spirituality, which she calls "feminist witchcraft". In this article, she shares her experiences, practices, and journey towards this spirituality, which she describes as a means of expressing feminine power.
Best known among these “counter” religious movements is Wicca (or Wiccanism), also called “The Craft." Established around the mid-twentieth century by Gerald Gardner, Wicca and other like-minded spiritual practices rooted in paganism (see new religious movements, occult practices, and Western esotericism) looked to borrow elements of beliefs and practices from shamanism, Druidism, Greco-Roman, as well as Slavic, Celtic and Norse mythologies. Wicca reconnects with these ancient religious practices, favouring the "feminine" expression of the sacred. In this tradition, witchcraft is considered an art of transformation. Rituals are designed to awaken images deeply buried in the subconscious, with the aim of bringing about a change in perception, behaviour and/or attitude, and to align oneself more in harmony with the rhythms of nature and the cosmos.
Poster for a workshop by Starhawk - November 199[3?]. Nellie Langford Rowell Library Collection. 10-014-S2-F673
Starhawk (Miriam Simos, b. 1951), became one of the leading lights of American Wiccanism. In 1979, she published The Spiral Dance, about neopagan practices. In it, she addresses the power of goddesses and feminine spirituality, ecofeminism and the rituals of modern witchcraft. She establishes a link between the sacred feminine and nature, which she believes is ruled by feminine forces, and develops a veritable community of devotees in San Francisco. In the 1990's and 2000's, she was active in pacifist and anti-globalization movements. At the same time, several Wicca movements were developing.
Wicca created new perspectives around the figure of the witch by emphasizing the power she possesses rather than her status as a victim. The spread of Wicca in the 1970s among some feminist groups is indicative of a new awareness among women. Expressing one's own spirituality became part of a broader desire for women to assert themselves as beings capable of spirituality and choice.
< WICCA Button [WICCA wise women lesbian amazon mother daughter sister nurturer healer peace keeper balancer of life teacher artist] - n.d. Pamela Andrews Collection. 10-067-F12-I11
Some spiritual groups sought status as bona fide religions to receive the same protections accorded to older institutions. Dianic Wicca (based on female-centered goddess worship) was established in response to charges laid against Zsuzsanna Mokcsay (pen name: Z. Budapest) in 1975 for "fortune telling" at her candle and bookstore in Venice, California (she violated a municipal by-law, which made fortune telling unlawful). Notably, Dianic Wicca also had a large membership of queer women, who found a supportive space within the movement.
Not all those who proclaim they are witches today consider themselves to be Wiccan or belong to a movement or religion, but practicing witchcraft (and claims of being a witch) have steadily risen in popularity ever since the mid-twentieth century.
As a result of this popularization, the term “witch” is now commonly used as a pretext for discussing exclusively feminine or othered subjects. For instance, the collective Montreal Sourcières published a magazine "for women only", in an effort to return to the source (hence “sourcières”) of women's energy, symbolized by the goddesses and heroines of the past: "We want to revive these ancient myths, these stories of beautiful, strong, sovereign women; we want to create, here and now, a warm community, an environment conducive to this discovery."
> Front cover. Les Sourcières on a quest for our feminine energies. Collectif des Sourcières. Vol.1, 1980. Montreal. HQ 1102 .S68
Witches & Protest: Figures For Change
The figure of the witch served women's liberation strategies as a rebellious affirmation of women’s power, particularly in a political dimension. From the nineteenth century onwards, the witch was used by suffragettes as an analogy to show how society, and more particularly institutions like the Church, made women into scapegoats. Suffragettes recognized themselves in the image of the witch, as women who were often vilified for challenging societal norms. By the late 1960s, a new wave of feminists became involved in women’s liberation, with many not only sympathizing with, but claiming to be, witches. They adopted pagan iconography and practices to advocate for change, particularly in the United States, where witchcraft became a significant aspect of the counter-culture.
In 1968, the American organization WITCH (commonly known as the Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell) was established to further the work of left-wing feminist activists. They linked women to witchcraft as a basis for collective identity in New York and organized public protests and public theatre events to highlight the dominance of patriarchal capitalists (they even gathered outside the New York Stock Exchange and cast spells on Wall Street!). According to the group (and its many offshoots), witches could operate independently or collectively, forming covens as a strategy for political organizing and change.
"There's no need to join WITCH. If you are a woman and you dare to look inside yourself, then you are a witch." Manifesto of WITCH (Women's international Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell), New York, 1968
Though WITCH members who took up this mantle were generally viewed as a fringe of the larger women’s movement, they were first and foremost political activists who sought to challenge the role of capitalism in the oppression of women, as well as the role of the state in the development of society.
Groups like those who associated with WITCH were also instrumental in perpetuating certain myths of the witch trials. Erroneously, for example, the early WITCH group from New York claimed that European witch trials were an attempt by the Church to eradicate surviving pagans, and stated that some nine million women were killed. Nevertheless, they were an important part of rehabilitating the witch’s image and establishing the archetype of the witch as a figure of protest.
< Press Gang Benefit – An Evenings Entertainment for Women! - January 31, 1976. Canadian Women's Movement Archives 10-001-S5-I261 - Image of figures within a circle ringed with stars inscribed with the words “The Moon Boat: Seven female figures standing in a crescent-shaped boat suggestive of the moon. This symbolizes an inner journey of initiation through waters of the underworld ruled by the moon or moonboat goddess. Therefore it probably symbolizes a woman’s initiation.
The witch's historic link to climate and nature was well established within the literature of the witch trial period, as well as in accusations levied at the trials. Some of those accused were said to “rayse stormes and tempestes in the aire” [James I, Daemonologie, 1597]. The link between climate change during the early modern period, including a high frequency of climatic anomalies and the corresponding periods of intensive witch trials is a more recent analysis [W. Behringer, "Climatic Change and Witch-hunting: the Impact of the Little Ice Age on Mentalities", 1999]. Prior to this, however, second-wave feminists took up the mantle of the witch with an understanding that women's connection to nature was misunderstood and feared during the witch trials. They used the witch and magic, instead, as a means of protest action over concerns for the environment beginning in the 1970s.
Feminist eco-activist groups perceived careless actions against nature as an extension of the patriarchy’s misogyny towards women, a cry that is echoed today and given even greater nuance with the application of intersectional feminism. Ecofeminism argues that environmental issues are feminist issues, and for many twentieth century feminists (and beyond), it is understood that there is a deep bond between women and nature that should be cherished and whose persecution by the patriarchy must be opposed.
It was with this background, that some Canadian feminists used the witch in anti-nuclear protest. In the late 1970s, women began to denounce nuclear power, which they perceived to be an anti-democratic, capitalistic, and patriarchal project. Anti-nuclear feminist collectives debated both nuclear weapons and energy, emphasizing the importance of respecting the interconnectedness of nature and society, and drawing attention to the ways in which institutions had often placed financial gain over the health and welfare of individual communities, who were typically not consulted before projects began. Through performances, poetry, as well as by using creative ways to gain media attention at demonstrations, groups drew attention to the potential pitfalls of pursuing science and money at the expense of the planet.
In June 1979, several people formed a hexing circle at the Darlington Nuclear Power Plant (today called Darlington Nuclear Generating Station) in Clarington, Ontario. Recalling the event, Judith Quinlan writes: "We made a hexing circle at the protest to close the Darlington Nuclear Power Plant... [but] the hex was a small portion of that protest. It was organized by me and a group of feminists who were also climate activists.”
To watch the complete video, see: Darlington Hex - Judith Quinlan fonds 10-188-F1-I2
Video with no sound filmed by Judith Quinlan on a Super 8 Camera of a small hexing circle organized by Judith for a group of feminist climate activist (possibly the Women Against Nuclear Power group in Toronto) at a large anti-nuclear protest of the Darlington Nuclear Power Plant. The video depicts protesters in a large field during summer and a smaller group playing instruments, waving cylinder tubes, and forming a hexing circle. Other people seen in the video are Gay Bell, Anne Quigley, Ellen Quigley, Jacqueline Frewin, Pat Smith, and Maureen Sanderson.
After these demonstrations, several women continued to come together to protest nuclear power, including the formation of an anti-nuclear theatre group in Toronto, convened by Witches Against Nuclear Technology.
The witch’s spirit was also used by queer communities, who sought (and seek) to challenge binaries created by western patriarchies. Queer, Lesbian and non-binary feminists saw social parallels between the past and present, as they sought to fight to dismantle the patriarchy and misogyny and oppose the oppression and persecution of those considered to be “other." For example, some of the hateful terminology directed towards the LGBTQ+2S community relates to witchcraft: the term ‘faggot’ came from the bundles of sticks that witches and other heretics were burned on, while terms like ‘fairy’ were often used in place of the word ‘witch’.
> University of Toronto - Gays and Lesbians at University of Toronto (GLAUT) - 1976-1992 - Canadian Women’s Movement Archives (CWMA) 10-001-S1-F3429
Collectives of witches also came together to protest a number of other causes beyond the climate, to challenge institutions that created and perpetuated sexism, inequality, and more. In Ottawa, WOMIM (Women Opposing the Military Industrial Mentality), inspired by the Women’s Pentagon Action of the United States, took a holistic approach, viewing spiritualism, ecofeminism, creativity and pacifism as essential to good politics [10-186-S2-F2, 10-186-S2-F18, 10-186-S2-F6 to F8]. Several Canadian Women also participated in American groups, such as the Seneca Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace & Justice, who used elements of ritual in their protest and civil disobedience actions such as forming large circles, holding hands, performing slow walks. [Much of their activities are chronicled in the Canadian feminist periodical “Off Our Backs”].
Over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first century, the witch has become a symbol of empowerment and protest: the independent female authority who resists male domination. She is a rebel, a figurehead for political radicalism and victimhood, and she often signifies the presentation of subversive knowledge.
Conclusion: Witches, feminist heroines of the 21st century?
From the late nineteenth century, women’s reclamation of the word “witch”, one which rejected and/or celebrated its derogatory and slanderous nature has been an indicator of protest. However, with the frequency of her appearance today in media, is the witch still a symbol of counterculture? And perhaps more importantly, if she is constantly undergoing reinvention, does this elusivity diminish her power and influence?
The witch’s portrayal in popular culture has affected and was affected by the efforts of various groups, including feminists, to redefine her image. While we still see portrayals of the wicked witch v. good witch in media, we also see an increasing number of three-dimensional characters that go beyond representations of the witch as either one or the other: rebel or a victim, seductress or sexually liberated woman, etc.
Nevertheless, activists still work to re-appropriate the symbol of the witch to oppose and deconstruct enduring misogynist power dynamics globally.More recently, a 2017 Facebook witches group cast a spell against former U.S. president, Trump, forbidding him from doing harm. Lindy West, a contemporary feminist also appropriated the term in the wake of backlash from the #MeToo Movement, claiming in her New York Times article, “Sure, if you insist, it’s a witch hunt. I’m a witch, and I’m hunting you" [October 17, 2017].
Today, witches have become intertwined with feminism and opposition to the mainstream and remain a part of the culture of protest in North America, but the witch is really whoever the audience wants them to be. Social media has greatly contributed to conversations about witches with popular hashtags like #witchesofinstagram and #witchtok, spurring on new grassroots community spaces. Somewhat more ironically (considering feminist castings of witches as victims of patriarchal-capitalism), there is a growing market for witch-core aesthetic that goes well beyond October and Halloween.
This exhibit has touched on some of the representations of the witch throughout history by using records from Archives and Special Collections at the University of Ottawa Library. Though it cannot present a complete history or analysis, we hope this can be a starting point for discussion as the witch’s image continues to evolve in the years to come.
Presented by Archives and Special Collections, University of Ottawa Library. October 2023.