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Witches as Rebels against Patriarchy
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Chapter 6 provides a reading of how the subversive potential of the figure of the witch was utilized to attack the oppression of women. It commences with a discussion of Jules Michelet’s La Sorcière (1862), then considers how medical discourse on historical witches as hysterics was conflated with slander of feminists as hysterical and caricatures of them as witches. After that follows a treatment of American feminist Matilda Joslyn Gage, who presented the early modern witch cult as a Satanic rebellion against patriarchal injustice, and folklorist Charles Leland, who drew approbatory parallels between witches and the feminism of his day. The chapter demonstrates how Gage borrowed from both Michelet and Blavatsky in her texts. Finally, visual representations of the witch are discussed, focusing on how she was a symbol of female strength in both positive and negative ways in the sculptures and paintings of male as well as female artists.
Title: Witches as Rebels against Patriarchy
Description:
Chapter 6 provides a reading of how the subversive potential of the figure of the witch was utilized to attack the oppression of women.
It commences with a discussion of Jules Michelet’s La Sorcière (1862), then considers how medical discourse on historical witches as hysterics was conflated with slander of feminists as hysterical and caricatures of them as witches.
After that follows a treatment of American feminist Matilda Joslyn Gage, who presented the early modern witch cult as a Satanic rebellion against patriarchal injustice, and folklorist Charles Leland, who drew approbatory parallels between witches and the feminism of his day.
The chapter demonstrates how Gage borrowed from both Michelet and Blavatsky in her texts.
Finally, visual representations of the witch are discussed, focusing on how she was a symbol of female strength in both positive and negative ways in the sculptures and paintings of male as well as female artists.
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