The Role Of Witchcraft In Modern Society

Like most young North Americans female children, I always wanted to be a witch for Halloween. It was a costume I wore many times as a child and always thought it was really fun to dress as the evil witch from my favorite folktale and movie. I would beg my mom to buy me the big black pointy hat, green face paint, black cobweb dress, and straw broom and then walk door-to-door asking for candy. It was something that I never thought was inspired by previous events but was something that was fun and cool to dress as, as a child. I really never knew what a witch really was until this class and some previous classes have shown me what being a witch really entails. Like my take on a witch, society believes witches are female, mean and scary, in the article, The Making of the Female Witch, it shows that what modern society has known of the witch has in fact changed drastically from what it used to be.

The article was interesting because I have never really thought about why it was always females being prosecuted for witchcraft because I though only females can be witches.

So, I have never known or pictured a male being a witch. Although, now I understand that witchcraft was not sex-specific but was sex-related as stated in the article. Not only does society see a witch as female, but many articles and examples in previous classes that I have taken do not state the actions or pursuits of male witches. While witches are seemingly an un-gendered term, men could and also be accused of witchcraft, the treatment of male witches was drastically different to their female counterparts. For example, male witches were seen as profitable equals to the devil, while female witches must have been sexually subjected to him (Blécourt 300). So, male witches wee connected through their sex, while females were deemed by sex or sexual desires by men. This is still very apparent today, not only by witches but by society, as we live in a male-dominated, women sexualized

society.

It was interesting to see that what was once an image of oppressed women, it is now known as something which empowers female witches, and now male witches as well. Witches are seen as powerful beings and to learn that men were also involved was quite fascinating. Another thing that I found interesting about these readings was how the view of the witch changed over time, particularly in the last few centuries. From being a person practicing as a witch and was hunted down and killed to a fictional character in a movie or folktale that children want to be like. Many years ago, mentioning witchcraft was frowned upon and if you practiced it you could be shamed or even killed, and now today's children like to dress up as witches on Halloween like myself and it is seen as fun and harmless.