第1章
The Witch as Revolutionary: Reclaiming Female Power in a Patriarchal World
In 2018, Mona Chollet's "In Defense of Witches" burst onto the literary scene, becoming an instant feminist classic that has since been translated into over twenty languages. The book's timing was impeccable, arriving amid the #MeToo movement when women worldwide were challenging entrenched power structures. Celebrities from Emma Watson to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have cited the book as influential in shaping their understanding of how historical witch persecutions continue to shape modern attitudes toward women. What makes Chollet's work so compelling is her ability to connect seemingly disparate dots-from Renaissance-era witch burnings to contemporary beauty standards, from medical gaslighting to environmental destruction-revealing them as manifestations of the same patriarchal impulse to control women's bodies, minds, and spirits. As readers discover, the witch figure represents something revolutionary: a woman who refuses to be defined by her relationships to men and children, who claims ownership of her aging body, who trusts her own knowledge, and who dares to imagine a different world.
第2章
When Witches Were Women Who Stepped Out of Line
The witch hunts that swept through Europe and North America between 1400 and 1782 represent what historian Anne Llewellyn Barstow called "a burst of misogyny without parallel in Western history." Yet most of us misunderstand this history, wrongly placing these events in the Middle Ages rather than during the Renaissance and Enlightenment. We comfort ourselves with the notion that religious fanaticism drove these persecutions, when in fact civil courts conducted most witch trials, with Protestants hunting witches as zealously as Catholics.
The educated classes, not just uncouth villagers, drove this persecution through sophisticated media campaigns. The widely distributed "Malleus Maleficarum" (Hammer of Witches), written by respected scholars, has been compared to Hitler's "Mein Kampf" for how it sustained collective delusion and justified exceptional measures against perceived threats. This text explicitly stated that "male witches are of small concern," viewing women as weak-minded and lustful, making them easy prey for the Devil.
Women represented 80% of the accused and 85% of those condemned. In some German villages, persecution was so thorough that only one woman survived. Any woman who stepped out of line risked accusation-whether for talking back, speaking loudly, having a strong character, or showing sexual awareness. Contradictory behaviors could be equally suspicious: missing Mass too often or never missing it; gathering with friends or being too solitary.
The physical violations were horrific. Women's bodies were violated through "witch pricking," where they were stripped, shaved, and examined for the "Devil's mark." The tortures were unbearable-joints dislocated, bodies burned on hot metal chairs, bones broken-while demonologists urged ignoring victims' tears as diabolical trickery.
The toll remains disputed-estimates range from 50,000-100,000 victims, excluding those lynched, who committed suicide, or died in prison. The public staging of tortures served as collective discipline, compelling all women to become discreet and docile while internalizing their supposed wickedness. Previously supportive female subcultures ended, with women turning inward out of fear, as shown by cases like Peronne Goguillon and Anna Goldi, who were accused of witchcraft after reporting sexual harassment.
Why did this happen? The witch hunts coincided with women's increasing social power and independence. During this period, women were systematically excluded from businesses and professions, while married women lost legal rights through the reintroduction of Roman law. The witch hunts served as a violent corrective, putting women "back in their place" through terror and public spectacle.
What's most disturbing is how this history continues to shape our present. The persecution of witches reinforced prejudices and repressed certain female behaviors and lifestyles-creating negative associations that still produce censorship, barriers, hostility, and violence today.
第3章
The Radical Act of Living Without a Man
When feminist icon Gloria Steinem appeared on Larry King's CNN show in 1990, a caller accused her of causing "the downfall of our beautiful American family" and declared she "should rot in hell" after confirming Steinem wasn't married and had no children. This moment perfectly encapsulates society's enduring hostility toward women who choose independence over traditional family structures.
Steinem's life represented a powerful counterexample to anti-feminist stereotypes: her beauty and many lovers contradicted the notion that feminists are merely bitter, plain women, while her dynamic life of activism, writing, travel, love and friendship challenged the belief that a woman's life requires partnership and motherhood. Her famous response to why she wasn't married-"I can't mate in captivity"-encapsulates her independence.
Single women embody female independence in its most visible form, making them both targets of reactionary hate and intimidating figures to many women. Girls aren't taught to believe in their strength or value independence-instead learning to see partnership and family as the foundation of personal achievement while viewing themselves as delicate and helpless.
Films like Gillian Armstrong's "My Brilliant Career" (1979) provide rare examples of women choosing independence over marriage. When protagonist Sybylla Melvyn refuses her suitor's proposal saying, "I can't lose myself in somebody else's life when I haven't lived my own, yet," it presents a radical stance-that a woman might choose vocation over partnership.
Erica Jong's 1973 novel "Fear of Flying" explores the tension between security and freedom that women face. The protagonist Isadora Wing struggles with independence, realizing she "simply couldn't imagine herself without a man," feeling "lost as a dog without a master; rootless, faceless, undefined" despite seeing that most marriages around her are "appalling."
Independent women face a systematic war machine designed to make them surrender their autonomy. Tracy McMillan's viral 2011 HuffPost article "Why You're Not Married" exemplifies these normative pressures, contemptuously telling single women they were unmarried because they were "sluts," "shallow," or "liars." McMillan advised women not to appear angry or picky, warning that "female anger terrifies men" and that working around "a man's fear and insecurity is a big part of what you'll be doing as a wife."
Hollywood reinforces these messages through films like "Fatal Attraction," which demonizes Glenn Close's independent career woman as a "miserable creature" desperate for companionship and motherhood. Male viewers reportedly shouted "Beat that bitch! Kill her off now!" during screenings, revealing the visceral hatred toward women who reject traditional roles.
Even women in partnerships struggle against becoming "dissolving women" (femmes fondues) whose identities merge into their domestic and maternal roles. When writer Titiou Lecoq had children, she suddenly understood discrimination: "I-who had been operating as an absolute first-person singular 'I'-suddenly clicked, this was what it meant to be a woman."
This dissolution extends beyond household tasks. Adrienne Rich recalled stopping writing poetry during pregnancy, feeling "perceived by the world simply as a pregnant woman." A teacher canceled her poetry reading at a boys' school upon learning she was seven months pregnant. Even in 2005, Eliette Abecassis's protagonist worried about meeting her thesis supervisor while pregnant, as if intellectual and reproductive capacities were incompatible.
第4章
The Radical Choice Not to Mother
For women who don't desire motherhood, this represents a significant advantage-freedom from what Adrienne Rich described as the "ghettoizing" of female potential through institutionalized motherhood. One young woman who underwent tubal ligation described her first post-operative sexual experience as an "enormous feeling of freedom," exclaiming "This is how men feel!" at the sudden liberation from pregnancy concerns.
Despite Earth's 7.5 billion inhabitants making extinction concerns laughable, society still treats childlessness with inexplicable horror. Rebecca Solnit criticizes our collective intellectual laziness around parenthood, noting how we mindlessly prescribe marriage and children as life's only meaningful options while ignoring countless other ways to find purpose and express love.
Motherhood remains the final domain where even progressives deploy "Nature" arguments they'd reject in other contexts. While we've abandoned biological determinism regarding gender roles or sexuality, women's reproductive choices still face scrutiny based on outdated notions of biological destiny.
From the 18th century Encyclopedia defining women's purpose as childbearing to today's mysterious "biological clock" metaphor (which first appeared in a 1978 Washington Post article titled "The Clock is Ticking for the Career Woman"), society persists in viewing women's bodies as programmed for motherhood. This thinking extends beyond pregnancy to justify women's domestic responsibilities.
Women who refuse motherhood face the prejudice that they must hate children, like the witches who supposedly feasted on children during sabbaths. This is doubly frustrating because it's rarely true-many childless women actually like children but don't want their own. Some even choose childlessness precisely because of their sympathy for children.
Society remains largely intolerant of women who choose not to have children. People doubt the "good faith" of childless women or try to reframe them as substitute mothers (teachers mothering students, writers birthing books). Culture portrays childless women's achievements as mere consolation prizes for not having children, as in the film "Coco Before Chanel" which frames Chanel's career as compensation for personal loss rather than acknowledging her rich creative life.
Society accepts only one response from mothers about motherhood: "I love it." Yet Orna Donath's research reveals many women who regret becoming mothers-not that they don't love their children, but they hate the role itself. These women describe motherhood as "an unbearable burden," "the nightmare of my life," and challenge idealized notions like "a child's smile is worth everything."
Many had their first child and immediately realized motherhood wasn't for them, yet had more children due to social pressure. Some find minimal comfort in having "fulfilled their duty" and fitting social expectations. Their testimonies reveal they live in fear their children will discover their feelings, though some hope their honesty might help future generations make better-informed choices.
第5章
The Unforgivable Sin of Female Aging
Women are conditioned to fear aging from an absurdly young age. The author recalls her own distress at turning twenty, while Susan Sontag wrote about a friend who at twenty-one lamented that "the best part of my life is over." This anxiety uniquely burdens women-"we can hardly imagine a man rolling on the floor at his own twentieth's festivities, whimpering that he is old."
In our society, women face immense pressure to maintain youthful appearances, essentially working a "second full-time job" that costs them money. The American series "Broad City" illustrates this through an episode where Abbi discovers her first gray hair and visits a dermatologist who admits beauty maintenance is her full-time occupation. Women who can afford it work hard to remain "well preserved," accepting the absurd challenge of pretending time isn't passing.
When women age, they often face rejection not just because of appearance but because they've developed self-assurance and independence that threatens male partners. As Valerie Solanas noted, the social requirement for women to be nice and polite prevents them from engaging in the intense, witty conversations that only "completely self-confident, arrogant, outgoing, proud, tough-minded females" can have. Men who prefer younger women often seek unconditional admiration rather than the knowing gaze of a long-term partner-what John Casablancas and Claude Francois explicitly admitted when they said they preferred girls under eighteen because older women "start to think" and "talk back."
Women's accumulated experience is what makes their aging so threatening to patriarchal society. During witch hunts, older women were particularly targeted because their knowledge and wisdom were perceived as dangerous. While Disney classics depict "generational clashes between old witches and young beauties," they valorize youth and fertility over hard-won wisdom. This explains why white hair is respected on men but rejected on women-experience is considered reassuring in men but threatening in women.
The aging female body inspires genuine revulsion that reveals deeper cultural attitudes toward women's bodies at any age. Western philosophy has long positioned men as soul and women as body-Saint Augustine claimed women were "not made in God's image," while Saint Ambrose declared that "man is soul while woman is sensation." Renaissance poets created "wretched portraits" of old women as "skeletal carcasses," establishing a "code of hideousness" that continues today.
During the witch-hunt era, older women's sexuality provoked particular terror. Post-menopausal and often widowed, these women were viewed as immoral threats-experienced in sex yet no longer entitled to it since they couldn't bear children. They were characterized as bitter, envious of younger women, "oversexed" and "sexually insatiable." This demonization persists today in how we police older women's appearance and sexuality.
This double standard, as Susan Sontag noted, cruelly disqualifies women from sexual attractiveness precisely when they've overcome cultural inhibitions and might enjoy their best sexual years. In 2000, a Portuguese court even reduced compensation to a woman whose surgical disaster left her unable to have sex, reasoning that at fifty, "sex is no longer as important as in her youth."
第6章
When Women's Knowledge Becomes Dangerous
The author begins by candidly exploring her own perceived "stupidity"-her recurring struggles in traditionally male-dominated domains like science, direction-finding, car maintenance, economics, and geopolitics. She recognizes this self-perception has a "strongly gendered dimension," as she unwittingly embodies long-standing sexist cliches of the "irrational little lady" and "scatterbrain." These experiences, she notes, are far from unique but rather reflect a common pattern among women who internalize societal messages about their capabilities.
She presents a nuanced argument that intelligence and competence are not fixed traits but vary significantly depending on context, audience, and social expectations. Women are more likely to feel intellectually inferior because society systematically assigns different realms of competence to each gender. Traditional women's knowledge - whether in caregiving, emotional intelligence, community building, or practical household management - is often "neglected, disdained or sometimes altogether invisible" in mainstream discourse. This systematic devaluation creates a self-fulfilling prophecy where women's perceived incompetence in certain areas becomes internalized and perpetuated.
The author challenges the dominant Western conception of the world as a collection of separate, inert objects valued purely for their utility. She traces this mechanistic worldview to 19th century scientific thinking, despite modern quantum physics revealing a far more complex, interdependent, and mysterious reality where the observer and observed are inextricably connected. This disconnect between contemporary scientific understanding and persistent cultural attitudes reveals deep-rooted biases.
Drawing on Silvia Federici's groundbreaking work "Caliban and the Witch" and Carolyn Merchant's "The Death of Nature," the author illuminates how the exploitation of women historically paralleled the exploitation of nature during capitalism's emergence. During the Renaissance, increasingly intensive human activities requiring vast resources triggered a fundamental shift in worldview - from understanding Earth as a living, maternal organism to seeing it as dead, manipulable matter. This transformation wasn't merely philosophical but had profound practical and social consequences.
The mechanistic worldview that replaced organic understanding promised "certain and consistent" mathematical knowledge but effectively stripped nature of its living essence. This represented what feminist philosopher Susan Bordo describes as a "drama of parturition" - a forced separation from the maternal medieval worldview in favor of supposedly superior values of "precision, clarity and detachment." This shift marked not just an intellectual change but a decisive flight from traditionally feminine values and ways of knowing.
Francis Bacon, notable adviser to witch-hunt enthusiast King James I, explicitly advocated treating nature as medieval society treated suspected witches - it must be "bound into service," "put in constraint" and mercilessly interrogated to surrender its secrets. This violent metaphorical framework had real consequences. By the 19th century, nature was increasingly depicted in art and literature as a docile woman, no longer resisting science's probing inquiries. This shift was powerfully illustrated in sculptures showing nature as a woman willingly unveiling herself before science - a representation that reflected the broader patriarchal demand that both women and nature should hide nothing from the controlling male gaze.
第7章
Medicine's War on Women's Bodies
The text details numerous health scandals affecting women: PIP breast implants leaking silicone, harmful Essure sterilization devices, dangerous contraceptive pills, and torturous vaginal prostheses. Additional cases include Mediator (weight-loss drug that killed thousands), Levothyrox (thyroid medication with devastating side effects), Distilbene (causing multi-generational harm), and Thalidomide (causing birth deformities). Women face systemic medical bias-chest pain treated as anxiety rather than heart issues, endometriosis dismissed for years, and complaints labeled "psychosomatic."
A powerful shift is occurring as women collectively challenge medical power dynamics. The author recalls traumatic teenage medical experiences-being examined while half-naked by doctors who spoke about her as if absent, handled roughly without regard for her modesty. Later, during a gynecological procedure, she was berated for expressing pain. Recent French social media movements like "Je n'ai pas consenti" ("I did not consent") have highlighted medical abuse, particularly obstetrical malpractice, prompting government inquiry.
The author explores how Western medicine separates curing from caring, contrasting this with traditional healers who combined both functions. She cites Ehrenreich and English who note that "Healing, in its fullest sense, consists of both curing and caring, doctoring and nursing." The author illustrates this through Maryse Conde's fictional witch Tituba, who treats a dying slave by giving constant attention and seeing him as a person rather than a passive body.
The author examines how obstetrics particularly perpetuates both the war against women and biases in modern science. She traces how male doctors displaced midwives through tools like the speculum (invented through experiments on enslaved women) and forceps, which midwives criticized as dangerous but were powerless to stop.
In a bitter irony, male doctors accused midwives of uncleanliness while their own practices spread deadly puerperal fever in maternity wards. The author recounts how Ignaz Semmelweis discovered doctors were causing deaths by not washing hands between dissections and deliveries, yet his findings were rejected by outraged colleagues, leading to his eventual breakdown and death.
The author points out that female healers targeted as witches were often more rational and effective than the era's doctors who used bloodletting and leeches. These women used plants still found in modern pharmacopoeia, including ergot of rye derivatives used in childbirth today. As Matilda Joslyn Gage observed in 1893, witches were "among the most profoundly scientific persons of the age," yet their knowledge was suppressed because it threatened male privilege.
第8章
Reclaiming the Witch: A Path to Liberation
Western feminists have reclaimed the witch narrative, defiantly reasserting the powers once feared by patriarchal judges with slogans like "We are the granddaughters of the witches you weren't able to burn." This feminist reclamation has sometimes achieved justice-Anna Goldi was officially exonerated in 2008, and memorials now honor witch-hunt victims in several European locations.
The feminist witch tradition began with Matilda Joslyn Gage, who in 1893 offered the first feminist reading of witch-hunts, writing "When for 'witches' we read 'women,' we gain fuller comprehension of the cruelties inflicted by the church upon this portion of humanity." Gage inspired the character of Glinda, the first "good witch" in popular culture. The movement continued with the Women's International Terrorist Conspiracy from Hell ("WITCH") demonstrating on Wall Street in 1968, France's feminist magazine Sorcieres (1976-1982), and Starhawk's influential neopagan writings beginning in 1979.
Today's witches are politically engaged-protesting against Trump, supporting Black Lives Matter, and fighting for abortion rights. Magic has emerged as a pragmatic response to modern instability-a way of anchoring oneself in a destabilizing world. Today's witchcraft practitioners, raised on Harry Potter, Charmed, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, embrace magic as both spiritual practice and political resistance. As Jack Parker writes in her newsletter: "What's important is that it works and that it does us good." This movement represents a blend of self-care, imagination, and political empowerment.
The ecological crisis has diminished the prestige of technocratic society, making space for alternative worldviews. Starhawk notes that modern physics actually converges with witches' intuitions about energy and matter. In times of political despair-symbolized by the election of a misogynistic billionaire-magic offers hope for the oppressed.
The author examines how emotions, particularly those attributed to women, are devalued in our society. She recounts how African-American activist Cora Tucker, protesting a radioactive waste site in her predominantly Black community, reclaimed the "hysterical housewife" label thrown at her by white male authorities: "When it comes to matters of life and death, especially mine, I get hysterical... If men don't get hysterical, there's something wrong with them."
The author argues that emotions don't necessarily lead us astray but can protect us from abuse and manipulation. She cites philosopher Michel Hulin who notes that even the most rigorous intellectual disciplines are rooted in emotional preferences-for organization over chaos, clarity over confusion. "It is upon the shifting sands of emotional preference that the whole edifice of our theoretical constructions stands."
Ecofeminists aim to reclaim and celebrate the body while challenging our antagonistic approach to nature, without allowing "nature" to become a pretext for imposing normative behaviors like motherhood or heterosexuality. The author points to 1970s separatist lesbian communities in Oregon as evidence that connection with nature doesn't require conforming to heteronormative expectations.
The author uses Uma Thurman's 2018 testimony about her experiences with Harvey Weinstein and Quentin Tarantino as a powerful example of how women's lived experiences dramatically differ from the narratives sold to us. Thurman's revelations about sexual harassment, on-set abuse, and a near-fatal stunt accident shattered the feminist image of Kill Bill, exposing the gulf between Hollywood mythology and brutal reality. The author welcomes this cultural reckoning as "a liberation, a decisive breakthrough" that creates space for a new worldview.
The author concludes by echoing Carolyn Merchant's call that "the world must once again be turned upside down," finding joy in the audacity of imagining a world where humanity's well-being comes through "an even-handed pact with nature, not by a Pyrrhic victory over it."
