The word “witch” is a loaded term; it has been for quite some time now. All over the world, in all different cultures, being described as different words, the concept of the witch is a consistent one that has developed independently across multiple continents simultaneously. While nowadays, men can choose to consider themselves as witches and practice Wicca or another form of witchcraft, historically most of the people (around 90%) who were accused of being witches were women. 

Women are typically in charge of the feminine space or what is also known as having domestic authority. Men, historically, have had trouble with managing women as a gender. Women are expected to have this “domestic authority” and take care of things that men don’t want to deal with while simultaneously being submissive and “ladylike” in the way they’ve defined. Most women who were accused of being witches in the past were individuals who failed to maintain their reputation by exhibiting “inappropriate female behavior.”

Women are both an important asset to men and society but also considered to be a problem. In his journal article “Women and Witches: Pattern of Analysis”, Clarke Garrett talks about how since the period of Saint Augustine, preachers and theologians claimed that “female sex was the source of the temptations that kept men from achieving purity”; even comparing women to the chimera, a monster with the head of a lion and the tail of a scorpion. Men have always considered women to be powerful creatures even if they don’t think about it like that; most accusations of witchcraft and subsequent persecutions came as a result of ambiguous social situations and hostilities that people had toward women who didn’t fit the mould.

Even before Christianity, the women accused of witchcraft tended to be older women living on the fringes of society. It made people very uncomfortable that there was a woman who was living on her own terms without a man to keep her in check. Accusations of witchcraft were also a way to remove economic burdens from society; anyone who wasn’t a part of the typical “family unit” and didn’t fit in could be accused of being a witch.

During the Prodestant Reformation, practicing witchcraft became known as something heretical and blasphemous. Not only were women on the fringe of society being targeted now, but also anyone practicing Paganism. Paganism is a general term to describe anything non-Christian and as a result is an umbrella term for a slew of different religions. However, the religions described as Pagan do have two main factors in common; they are polytheistic (worshipping multiple gods) and they are animistic. Animism is the idea that “divinity is inseparable from nature and that deity is immanent in nature.”

So now, we have two different distinctions of what could be considered “witchcraft”; a woman who doesn’t fit into traditional society and anyone who practices a non-Christian religion. Jacob Grimm described the women being accused of witchcraft as “wise women being persecuted by the church”. So while people were being accused of witchcraft long before Christianity was a major world religion, there is an obvious and steady connection between those accusing women of being witches and those being accused.

Every single time someone is accused of being a witch in history, it’s because those in power are afraid of them. Those in power can only maintain control if they have one or both of these qualities; they inspire respect or they instill fear. Patriarchy and religion are no exception to this rule. You won’t give us what we want? We will come in and take it. You threaten us? We will destroy you. Don’t believe that you need to give tithings to the church? Time to burn in hell. And when someone neither respects you nor fears you, that person becomes a threat to your authority and what do we do to people who are a threat to our authority? We kill them.

By labeling threats as witches, those in power had an excuse to kill them off because they were a “danger to society”, a “threat to our children”, or an “evil spawn of satan”. 

I choose to call myself a witch because I practice the art of manifesting what I want for myself in my life. I believe in multiple entities and divinity being inseparable from nature just like most pagans and I could just as well stop there. But I choose to use the word witch because I refuse to let the people in power tell me what it means to be a woman and what I should be doing as such. So go ahead, call me a witch, it just gives me more power knowing that it makes you angry.