Misogyny’s deadly history
Listen to the latest episode here: Bitchstory
Here’s a surprising subject for Bitchstory- Let’s talk about the King James version of the Bible…the good ol’ KJV and it’s flowery Shakespearean language.
No, I haven’t fallen and smacked my head. Stay with me…
The King James Version has shaped Christianity, literature, and the English language for more than four hundred years.
But here’s the part most of us never learned in school.
The same King James who commissioned that famous Bible also wrote a book called Daemonologie (aka Demonology)
Whether King James personally hated women is a more nuanced historical question. But there’s little debate that the witch hunts unfolded within a deeply patriarchal society where women—particularly outspoken, independent, widowed, poor, or simply “quarrelsome” women—were disproportionately accused. His writings helped give legal and cultural legitimacy to fears that were already simmering.
The result?
Thousands of people were accused under Scotland’s Witchcraft Act.
Most of them were women.
Around 2,500 were executed (by contrast, the Salem Witch trials in America only lasted a couple years and executed a couple hundred. The witchcraft trials in Scotland lasted 173 years).
It wasn’t because they practiced magic.
It was because society had created a system that made ordinary women look dangerous.
Witches Aren’t Found. They’re Made.
That’s what fascinated me when Lisa and I sat down with Claire Mitchell KC and Zoe Venditozzi, authors of How to Kill a Witch: The Patriarchy’s Guide to Silencing Women.
Their book is one of the cleverest history books I’ve read in a long time because it borrows the very framework King James helped popularize—and flips it upside down.
King James wrote a guide for identifying witches.
Claire and Zoe wrote a guide for recognizing how societies create them.
Instead of asking, “How do you spot a witch?”
They ask,
“How does an ordinary woman become one?”
It’s a subtle shift.
But it’s everything.
The Recipe
One of the biggest surprises for me was realizing there wasn’t some dramatic moment where an innocent woman suddenly became guilty.
There was a process.
First, society had to believe witches existed.
Then the law had to criminalize them.
Then people had to be taught what a witch supposedly looked like.
Then ordinary disagreements became supernatural accusations.
Evidence wasn’t discovered.
It was manufactured.
By the time a woman stood trial, the outcome had often been decided long before she entered the courtroom.
Spoiler alert: it wasn’t really about witches at all.
It was about how societies create enemies, and how to silence and control inconvenient women.
We’d All Have Been in Trouble
During the interview, I joked that I probably wouldn’t have survived seventeenth-century Scotland.
I’m opinionated.
I question authority.
I have multiple cats.
I make candles.
I use essential oils.
Honestly, I’d have been halfway to the stake before lunch.
And that’s exactly the point of this book- the women weren’t mysterious figures hiding in forests casting spells.
They were neighbors.
Healers.
Widows.
Midwives.
Women who argued.
Women who lived alone.
Women who didn’t fit comfortably inside society’s expectations.
Ordinary women.
History Isn’t Finished
One of the things I admire most about Claire and Zoe is that they didn’t stop at writing a book.
They founded the Witches of Scotland campaign with three ambitious goals:
- a formal apology from the Scottish government,
- a legal pardon for those convicted,
- and a national memorial.
In 2022, their campaign achieved one of those goals when Scotland formally apologized for the persecution of those accused under its witchcraft laws.
That’s remarkable!
Most historians write about history. Claire and Zoe helped change how history is remembered.
The Question That Stayed With Me
Like many Americans, I grew up reading The Crucible.
We all laughed.
How could anyone believe such ridiculous accusations?
How could entire communities lose their minds?
Well…let’s imagine we are in the future looking back at social media nonsense. And think about some beliefs that are baked into our current reality… Think about rape culture and victim blaming and “what was she wearing?” Think about misogyny in the workplace. Think about how DEI has been rolled back. Think about how obsessed with AOC the Trump administration seems to be.
The blueprint for creating a witch or an enemy is right under our noses. It’s less about some cultural blip in history that the future will think is silly and far more about how threatening women are to the structures that hold up patriarchies.
🎙️ Listen to our conversation with Claire Mitchell KC and Zoe Venditozzi on this week’s episode of Bitchstory, where we explore Scotland’s forgotten witch trials, the campaign that changed history, and why How to Kill a Witch isn’t really about witches at all—it’s about the dangerous machinery of fear, accusation, and the silencing of women.