Thread by @iletaitunefois, it's amazing how many male lecturers have assured me that witch trials [...]

it& #39;s amazing how many male lecturers have assured me that witch trials weren& #39;t misogynist and how few female lecturers have agreed lmao

like obviously some people executed were men! but the vast majority were not. and yes, a lot of accusers were women! but that didn& #39;t mean that the accusations weren& #39;t based on sexist ideas. like how weird it is that they tie themselves in knots to deny basic misogyny.

I think some of it is that they& #39;re pushing back against the ahistorical arguments made by a lot of the feminist neopagan scholars, which were... not accurate. but it feels like ignoring basic facts so they can argue against straw(wo)men.

I think it& #39;s also important to point out that, though an estimated 20-25% of victims were men (which still makes 75% women), that& #39;s not evenly distributed across periods and locales.

In other words, men were more likely to be accused at the beginning of the period, but as things snowballed, the percentage waned -- and it& #39;s been theorized that it was only able to take off so much once it was more firmly gendered -- and it was region-specific, too.

Like men were a lot more likely to be accused in western Europe vs eastern Europe, so you shouldn& #39;t take that 20-25% number to mean that, like, 25% of witch trials in England were against men. It& #39;s just not accurate.

I think to some degree, as more literature was published about witchcraft, the mental idea of a witch became more codified? Like the more people published about female witches, the more people associated witchcraft mostly with women.

I& #39;d also say that several of the cases I& #39;ve read with men being executed, the men were clearly politically unpopular (rather than just socially) so it& #39;s not always easy to separate from just. normal executions of the day.

(see: the dickhole guys love to martyr, urbain grandier)

guys: IT& #39;S SO TERRIBLE THAT URBAIN GRANDIER WAS UNJUSTLY MURDERED! HE WAS FRAMED! SIMPLY BECAUSE HE WAS SO FORWARD THINKING!

bruh he was a priest who fucked young unmarried women and wrote "anonymous" pamphlets against the government. dude was gonna die one way or another.

I can always tell when people got their information from Huxley or The Devils when they& #39;re like "poor Urbain Grandier... his only crime... was being too sexy..."

I had to watch The Devils in an actual classroom with my elderly teacher like five feet away from me watching sedately as a nun got a literal exorcism enema

and boy was I questioning my life choices

like I feel like a strong aspect of the history of witchcraft (including modern depictions) that we can& #39;t ignore is how much of it is just horny, horny fanfiction written by dudes. yeah okay the women go out and have orgies mmhmm that happened, oh they rim Satan? sounds good.

I remember watching The VVitch and being like oh wow another film that uncritically reproduces the sexist bullshit found in old witchcraft manuals cool cool cool I& #39;ve NEVER seen THIS before

like "but what if the women WERE having orgies??" isn& #39;t the wild new take you think it is

"yes this whole film is about how every male member of this girl& #39;s family wants to fuck her and her mom hates her for it so she runs off and joins a crew of naked women but like this is actually about EMPOWERMENT"

yeah okay empowering your dick maybe

like honestly just admit that you& #39;re horny and stop calling it history

*addendum

while I was rereading this thread I realized I mixed up east and west again because I am a grown ass woman who still has to murmur "never eat soggy waffles" whenever I use cardinal directions so like

men were more likely to be persecuted in EASTERN europe.

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