The Plight of the Woman Witch

[Vetus Ordo]

The Plight of the Woman Witch: Examining the Witch Hunts in the Reformation Period

By Kiegan Lloyd.

Since the 1970s and 1980s there has been a tremendous and prodigious amount of scholarship done on witchcraft, more specifically on the witch-hunts of the early modern period. Ultimately debate and open discourse have flourished among the early modern historian community. The public has always been engrossed with anything occult and esoteric. This interest drives constant research in this area of expertise. Around 40,000-50,000 people were executed as witches in the early modern period between the years 1400-1750. This statistical figure is the most recent data offered by the early modern historian community, and it is clear that the majority of deaths were of women. This paper argues that the Protestant Reformation encouraged fears of female witchcraft in the Holy Roman Empire, heavily influencing the witch hunts in the sixteenth and seventieth centuries. Women were not merely targets of witchcraft accusations based on their gender, but targeted because they did not conform to the social norms of society.

Link to download the PDF here.

[Josephine87]

Yep, reads like a college term paper. 

It's interesting to me how fascinated people are with the fact that those prosecuted for witchcraft were, by majority, women.  Meanwhile every other crime prosecuted under the sun was against a majority of male criminals.  Man bites dog and all of that.