Pretty much everything wrong with America in general. A good comrade I knew years ago taught history at a university in the midwest and one piece of American history he loved to teach was the Salem witch trials. Many victims of Salem were just suspected of wrong doing for how they looked, and they came up with reasons to find guilt based on crazy measures.
You see this today too in criminology with the lie detector tests. If someone passes them, they say "well, they faked it!" but if they fail it, that's used to further their guilt. You're either damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Witch trials went on for several centuries throughout Protestant Europe, while Catholic Europe had its analog of Inquisitions.
These were social punishment mechanisms used to coerce women into the new social roles required by the growth of capitalism.
Peasants could split gender roles and divide labor how they saw fit. Proletariat had to be molded into strict gender roles to accommodate long days in the factories for men, and housekeeping for women. Many women (and some men) resisted those change and were charged with heresy and witchcraft.
Tens of thousands of “witches” were killed in Europe throughout the centuries. They were overwhelmingly women who rejected the new social gender norms.
It's sickening to read about those historical accounts. You can see where gender roles and cultural norms within evangelicalism was really formed as a result of the witch burnings.
Got some links to these accounts or anything about this stuff? I find the transition from feudalism to capitalism fascinating. I've been needing to continue reading Caliban and the Witch.
Unfortunately I don't at the moment. My friend I mentioned who works in academics with history could supply a list of books worth checking out. I will see if I can get a hold of him this weekend.
Pretty much everything wrong with America in general. A good comrade I knew years ago taught history at a university in the midwest and one piece of American history he loved to teach was the Salem witch trials. Many victims of Salem were just suspected of wrong doing for how they looked, and they came up with reasons to find guilt based on crazy measures.
You see this today too in criminology with the lie detector tests. If someone passes them, they say "well, they faked it!" but if they fail it, that's used to further their guilt. You're either damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Witch trials went on for several centuries throughout Protestant Europe, while Catholic Europe had its analog of Inquisitions.
These were social punishment mechanisms used to coerce women into the new social roles required by the growth of capitalism.
Peasants could split gender roles and divide labor how they saw fit. Proletariat had to be molded into strict gender roles to accommodate long days in the factories for men, and housekeeping for women. Many women (and some men) resisted those change and were charged with heresy and witchcraft.
Tens of thousands of “witches” were killed in Europe throughout the centuries. They were overwhelmingly women who rejected the new social gender norms.
It's sickening to read about those historical accounts. You can see where gender roles and cultural norms within evangelicalism was really formed as a result of the witch burnings.
Got some links to these accounts or anything about this stuff? I find the transition from feudalism to capitalism fascinating. I've been needing to continue reading Caliban and the Witch.
Unfortunately I don't at the moment. My friend I mentioned who works in academics with history could supply a list of books worth checking out. I will see if I can get a hold of him this weekend.
Much appreciated!
replying to remind myself to check back