In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial

In this spirited yet uneven polemic, journalist Chollet traces misogynistic attitudes in Western society back to witch hunts that occurred in Europe and the U.S. from the 1300s to the 1700s. These periodic public tortures and executions of women “induced all women to be discreet, docile, and submissive,” according to Chollet, and drove them into an acceptance of the “gendered division of labor required by capitalism.” She forcefully argues that the marginalization of single women, women without children, older women, and female healers is a direct legacy of the witch hunt, though her calls for rethinking social behaviors and expectations often seem out-of-date. For example, her critique of the “standard birth position” of “lying on your back” doesn’t acknowledge that women in the U.S. have been encouraged to sit or move during labor since the 1980s. Elsewhere, Chollet presumes that “a large number of parents have given in to societal pressure rather than to an impulse of their own” without providing firm evidence for such a conclusion. Though her iconoclastic wit shines, Chollet’s provocations ultimately come across as more defensive than revolutionary. This call for change feels like old news. (Mar.)