Squid Game may be this year’s Halloween costume fad, but here’s why witches remain a favourite
- While dressing up as a witch is a perennial Halloween choice, the reason may not be the one expected
- Witches have been symbolising powerful and independent women since at least the 16th century
Usually portrayed with a large unflattering black dress, a hooked nose and a few warts, these sorcerers are associated in the collective psyche with being old, hideous and fairy-tale villains.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a witch is also “an ugly or unpleasant woman”. The term is used as an insult to highlight a woman’s jealousy, repulsiveness and loneliness. Unlike its male equivalent “wizard”, the word “witch” has a negative connotation and witches are still represented very unfavourably in today’s folklore.
Nevertheless, witches have become modern feminist icons – because they have been symbolising powerful and independent women since the 16th century.
The word “witch” derives from the Old English words “wicca” and “wicce”. In Europe, these women were healers capable of treating villagers using their knowledge of nature, as well as assisting with both childbirth and abortion. For centuries, they embodied medical knowledge.
Finding themselves in competition with the medicinal compounds produced by monasteries and Christian authorities in Europe, they became excluded from, rather than celebrated by, society. These women were independent, knowledgeable and powerful within male-centric societies. They were thus nonconformists, threatening the moral and social order.
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In the 15th century, a witch-hunt started in Europe, and intensified by the colonisation of Africa and the Americas, extended to those territories. It did not only concern healers – any woman who was too loud, too rich, had relationships with too many men, or was on the margins of society, was considered suspicious.
The Malleus Maleficarum, written by two Catholic clergymen and a major contributor to the witch-hunt in Europe, summarised the sentiments of the time by quoting the Roman philosopher Seneca as saying, “When a woman thinks alone, she thinks evil.” Some men were also targeted by the hunt, but remained a minority.
As a result, it is estimated that between 50,000 and 200,000 people were persecuted, tortured, sexually abused and killed by drowning or burning between the 15th and 18th century in Europe.
Witch-hunts are far from being a thing of the past; one historian estimates that more people have been killed for witchcraft in the 20th century than during the entire 300-year period of witch-hunts in Europe.
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Mona Chollet’s acclaimed book Witches: The Undefeated Power of Women, explains that the persecution of witches, rather than being a brief episode in history, is an example of society’s seemingly eternal misogyny.
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Many activists decided it was time to shine the light on these persecutions, and embrace the identity of the witch as a timeless challenge to patriarchy.
In South Korea, Nicaragua, Italy, France and Turkey, women dressed as witches have joined the ranks of feminist demonstrations over the years. In 2017, in the US, a group of witches cast a “mass spell” on then US president Donald Trump to stop him from doing harm. Witchcraft also became a way for people of indigenous descent to reconnect with their ancestors and their beliefs, once persecuted by Europe and Christianity.
Today, the symbol of the witch is taking on a new meaning as activists fighting against racism or neocolonialism, or advocating for their gender, sexuality or the environment, invoke it as a statement of empowerment.
Salomé Grouard is a digital production executive with the Post
