Today feminists still get called witches amongst other words such as Feminazi, bitch, man-hater and some I cannot bring myself to type. It seems not much has changed. However instead of gettin depresed, this should encourage feminists to be more radical in their attempts to destroy male supremacy

History is written by those who win. And the patriarchs who persecuted the witches and/or who supported witch-hunts are the ones who won that war against women and are the ones who wrote history.

Also, womyn’s herstory is being constantly erased…

I asked this same question in another section of your website and then realized that perhaps this page would be best to post this question on. So I apologize for the repetition.

I watched The Burning Times Documentary and I am still somewhat confused on something. Why exactly has European scholarship and the mainstream conception of “our” history erased the witch-hunt?

Thanks!

Leanna

Sorry, Sadi, while it is important to have somewhere to go when we’re ill, it is important to not forget that:

“We have not been passive bystanders in the history of medicine. The present system was born in and shaped by the competition between male and female healers. The medical profession in particular is not just another institution which happens to discriminate against us: it is a fortress designed and erected to exclude us. This means to us that the sexism of the health system is not incidental, not just the reflection of the sexism of society in general or the sexism of individual doctors. It is historically older than medical science itself; it is deep-rooted, institutional sexism. . . Men maintain their power in the health system through their monopoly of scientific knowledge.”

~ Barbara Ehrenreich & Deirdre English, in Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers

Women have always been healers, and medicine has always been an arena of struggle between female lay practitioners and male professionals. Ehrenreich & English’s book (I just quoted from) explores two important phases in the male takeover of health care: the suppression of ‘witches’ in medieval Europe and the rise of the male medical profession in the Western world.

There are quite a few women doctors (in the current field of medical science) but they are working in a medical establishment that is patriarchal:

“We [radical feminists] understand patriarchy to be a system of structures and institutions created by men in order to sustain and recreate male power and female subordination. The structures of patriarchy include, but are not limited to, the law, medicine, religion and the traditional family…”

~ Heart, in her definition of radical feminism.

I hope you don’t buy into new-age “they had actual magic and the pat killed them ’cause it was JEALOUS” stuff that seems to show up whenever you meet people that take this stuff seriously.

No, I’m an atheist. I don’t believe in the “supernatural”. As I talked about above, the ‘witches’ were in fact frequently midwives and/or female healers. They were especially good at natural medicine and preparing herbal remedies. They were also pagans and they rejected Christianity. The patriarchal Church hated them as women and as heretics.

The Burning Times documentary posted above explains more about what happened.

this was a good post. . . I kinda like you. You’re fun.

Thank you.

I don’t know, some of them have merit. Medical science has been pretty nice to us recently.

Aside from that, this was a good post. I hope you don’t buy into new-age “they had actual magic and the pat killed them ’cause it was JEALOUS” stuff that seems to show up whenever you meet people that take this stuff seriously. I kinda like you. You’re fun.