Michael Osorio

11/05/18
Hist 414

The first article by Christina Larner deals with the sexism against women during

the witch trials. Her main focus is on how men perceived as a threat to thier hegemony

and that anyone that should threaten their position must be a witch. So Christina asks to

what extent was the European witch hunt a response to is perceived threat. She asks

if this witch hunt was a disguised attack on women . She notes that the ratio of males to

females put on trial for witchcraft just added to the theory that this was a sex war. She

then goes into how women also accused other women so this wasn't sexist she

disagrees and argues that there was a failure to recognize the patriarchal structure to

society at the time that divided women. She also dismisses the argument that men

were treated just as bad as women so if they were labeled a witch so it a war against

women she notes that only 20% of men were accused of witchcraft.

The second article by Jane Davidson takes the other side of the argument and

says that there is not enough documented evidence to prove female healers were

accused by men to be witches. She dismisses the idea that doctors accused midwives

in order to keep women in their place. She notes that the midwives being accused as

witches was widespread the evidence suggests the midwives actually consumed was

small. She also notes that there is few documented evidence of female healers being

accused of witchcraft.

The final article by Clive Holmes goes into women accusing other women of

witchcraft and their passive roles as witch trials. Holmes notes the rise of women
witnesses is related to offences against property since the accused had damaged

stock. Holmes also notes that women where in better positions to witness incidents that

conformed to the altered perception of the nature of witchcraft as a criminal offence”.

(269) He then writes about how women naturally possessed the powers needed to use

witchcraft. Also how villagers paid to be protected from witches and for counter magic.

He notes that women despite their high involvement were passive actors in the legal

process against witches. Then he goes through the different types groups of women

witnesses there where. Overall this article goes into the role of women in accusing

other women and the cultural complexity.

The first article was to biased in my opinion and its tone overpowered the

authors argument. She did give us information supporting her argument but i felt like it

just overshadowed by her word choices. The second article by Davidson was taking

the opposite stance of the first and was also poorly executed .Davidson did not clearly

show us her evidence showing how women were not targeted . She tries to disprove

the conspiracy that doctors of the time wanted to keep women out of medicine and

know thier place. But the evidence given is not convincing enough.Alls of the articles

are interesting articles but none really catch your attention.