Witchcraft and Female Empowerment

For this weeks reading I chose to read James Robinsons' comic, Witch Craft. I find it incredibly fascinating how tales of witches and witchcraft have for the most part evolved into being stories of female empowerment and camaraderie. Historically, witchcraft was seen as this evil thing that, predominantly, evil and satanic women practiced. At least, this is the case for the western history that we are taught in schools about the Salem witch trials and what not. Now, there are many theories as to why there was a witchcraft craze back then, including the idea of drug-induced hallucinations, but a lot of people believe that the reason it was mostly women that were accused has to do with the sexism of the time and fear of powerful women, which isn't a totally outlandish assumption. In reality, the truth probably lies somewhere between that and some of the theories. Given that thought though, it makes sense to swap the power play in current stories about witchcraft and make a statement about female power. You can see that this comic series heavily relies on that recurring theme of female empowerment very early on; within the first few pages really. You see all of these Roman women who are seen as nothing but wives to their husbands and they all band together, lying to their husbands about where they are going,  so that they can go worship their goddess of witchcraft, Hecate, and be empowered together. The fact that this story follows three goddesses, Hecate, and their plight in making sure a girl who was raped and killed by brutal men gets her revenge at all costs, says a lot. The exploration in a male perspective in Ursula's second reincarnation is also very interesting. I think that this comic says a lot about stereotypical gender roles and ideals and swapping the power play that has been typical throughout most of human history. It's a very interesting read because of that.