The cat prevalent in imagery of witches was one of many creatures that appear in evidence at witch trials – these ‘familiars’ were deemed to be under the control of the witch, assisting her in her evil deeds.īut in analysing the break from the natural world, Federici goes further, pointing to the impact of early capitalism and the ‘enclosure’ land policies that were enforced on the English countryside during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when the witch-hunts peaked. Where once anthropomorphism played a role in folklore, the link between man and animal world was broken and animals lost their status as sentient beings, valued only for their use value to humans. Feminists and historians have pointed to the decline of magic, and the fear of women’s reproductive power in the Enlightenment period, as a key to the understanding the widespread persecution of women as witches – rational science bumping up with and asserting itself over the old world, by containing women’s messy, irrational bodies and destroying traditional knowledge of childbirth and healing practices.ĭeviant behaviour was increasingly linked with animality in the modern period. The central question she seeks to address is why this deeply misogynistic practice took hold at a time when modern ideas of science, economics and the bourgeois class were in the ascendency. Divided into two sections, the first part of the collection sees Federici re-visit themes from her 2004 book Caliban and the Witch, in which she addresses the causes and outcomes of the European witch-hunts. As Federici states, ‘No “Day of Memory” has been introduced in any European calendar to remind us of the massacres of the witches.’ It’s a poignant introduction to the collection of essays in Witches, Witch-Hunting and Women. The sexualisation of witches for commercial purposes enrages Silvia Federici, who notes that the political class and religious institutions that colluded in the witch-hunts of the early modern era have never acknowledged, or indeed apologised for, the mass murder of women that took place.Įxact numbers are vague, but it is estimated that tens of thousands of women were killed as a result of accusations of witchcraft in Western Europe and North America.
Witch it power tv#
The TV show Sabrina The Teenage Witch has recently been revived on Netflix, featuring a cute young blonde with magical powers. In a cruel twist, fancy dress shops purvey sexy witch outfits to be trotted out on Halloween. In the West, the witch is regarded as a fictional figure of fun, the bloody reality of witch-hunting in our past and present whitewashed from the public consciousness.
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