Picture this: a woman stands by a hearth (or a hearth-metaphor) and a crowd gathers because crops failed, the moon looked weird, the husband died unexpectedly. Cue the ring of accusation. That is the witch hunt. Not magic. Not mystery. A mechanism.
Between roughly 1450 and 1750 in Europe and its colonies, there were estimated 110,000 trials for witchcraft and between 40,000 to 60,000 executions, the vast majority being women. And get this: in many regions about 75 to 80% of the accused were women.
Why? Because the costume of “witch” was not about spells. It was about control. Women who were widowed, older, land-owning, healers, or just too visible became the perfect scapegoats. In rural India today, the ritual continues: since 2000, over 2,300 people have been recorded as killed for witchcraft allegations — almost all women.
The fire never deserved them. The crown never sat on their heads. But patriarchy? It lit the match. Because when women refused to stay small, that was the crime.
The “witch hunt” as warning label.
Let’s name some of the characters: Agnes Sampson, Alice Nairne, Margaret Henderson, Lady Pittadro. These weren’t fantasy villains. They were real women: widows, healers, land-holders, accused because they diverged from the tidy script. In the Great Scottish Witch Hunt of 1649-50, for instance, thousands were accused and many were executed.
It wasn’t just about theology: it was class, age, gender. Elderly women were particularly vulnerable. In Wurzburg, Germany: of 190 women tried, 140 were older than 40. Jump-cut to India: accusations are a mechanism for land grabbing, silencing, property disputes.
So the “witch” label? It was less about cauldrons and more about “be smaller, be submissive, disappear.” The witch-hunt was misogyny in theatrical costume — complete with pitchforks, pyres, verdicts before evidence. The costume changed region to region, but the performance? Same script.
The women who refused their “safe” scripts.
Meet Dorcas Frye, Hola Devi, Elizabeth Bathory. Real or debated, they all share the same storyline: a woman too visible, too independent, too loud for the comfort of the system. They didn’t wait for permission. And they paid for it.
These women, the healers, the land-owners, the unmarried, weren’t minor characters in history. They were the plot twist patriarchy didn’t like. Their lives said: you cannot control me. So you label me. You burn me. Or you bury me in guilt or silence.
When you dig into it, the witch-hunt was never an outlier. It was a method. A systematic way to enforce invisibility. To teach women: You will not be seen. Because if you are, someone may just say you’re a witch. And then… well, you might not survive the label.
Fact-check: misogyny never left the pitchfork.
Let’s pull punchlines from history books:
- Fact: Around 80% of the accused witches in early-modern Europe were women.
- Fact: In England, only about 25% of those tried (most weren’t or had no way of proving their innocence), were found guilty and executed. Yet the fear and spectacle impacted thousands.
- Fact: In India, since 2000, more than 2,500 assaults/kills of women accused of witchcraft have been recorded (and many more likely unreported).
- Fact: Age + marginalisation = higher risk. Older, widowed women were disproportionately targeted.
So yes: the witch-hunt was misogyny in costume. And the costume still fits. When women are told to “smile, be quiet, be small,” that’s a modern-day witch trial. The difference? The pyres are silent, but the damage isn’t.
If you think witch-hunts are dusty history, they’re not. Every time a woman is shamed for being loud, every time she’s punished for existing too fully; that’s the legacy of those fires. The costume may be new: shame, “witch” gossip, social isolation, but the system is ancient.
So what do we do with this truth? We remember. We speak. We refuse invisibility. We reclaim the narrative. We light our own fires. Not to burn ourselves. But to make sure no one ever doubts our flame.
You, me, every woman who’s been told: tone it down, be nice, quieten your presence, we are the descendants of women they tried to burn. We carry their rage, their knowledge, their refusal; it’s in our bones.
And if someone calls you a witch for daring to live loudly, smile. That’s exactly the costume you were never meant to wear.
Want more stories that refuse to burn quietly? Come to Her Campus at MUJ, where every word is a spell and every woman a spark. Written by Niamat Dhillon at HCMUJ, still too loud for the stake and too bright for the dark.