In her introduction to In Defence of Witches, Mona Chollet discusses historical and contemporary examples of women self-identifying as witches for feminist rather than occult reasons. These include second-wave feminist publications such as the WITCH Manifesto — which is quoted in the book’s epigraph — and Sorcières (‘witches’) magazine.
Surprisingly, she begins with a relatively unknown figure who has since become famous as a fictional archetype: “The first feminist to disinter the witches’ story and to claim this title for herself was the American Matilda Joslyn Gage, who... inspired the character of Glinda, the good witch in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was written by her son-in-law, L. Frank Baum.” Given the success of the film adaptation of Baum’s book, The Wizard of Oz, Chollet argues that its director, Victor Fleming, “created the first ‘good witch’ in popular culture.”
In Defence of Witches was originally published in French as Sorcières: La puissance invaincue des femmes. Its American edition has a slightly longer subtitle (In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial). Two other recent books have reappropriated the word ‘witch’ in both the feminist and occult senses: in Witch, Lisa Lister writes: “Witch... is now being reclaimed”, and in Witches, Sluts, Feminists, Kristen J. Sollée credits Gage as “the first known suffragist to reclaim the word ‘witch’.”
Surprisingly, she begins with a relatively unknown figure who has since become famous as a fictional archetype: “The first feminist to disinter the witches’ story and to claim this title for herself was the American Matilda Joslyn Gage, who... inspired the character of Glinda, the good witch in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which was written by her son-in-law, L. Frank Baum.” Given the success of the film adaptation of Baum’s book, The Wizard of Oz, Chollet argues that its director, Victor Fleming, “created the first ‘good witch’ in popular culture.”
In Defence of Witches was originally published in French as Sorcières: La puissance invaincue des femmes. Its American edition has a slightly longer subtitle (In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial). Two other recent books have reappropriated the word ‘witch’ in both the feminist and occult senses: in Witch, Lisa Lister writes: “Witch... is now being reclaimed”, and in Witches, Sluts, Feminists, Kristen J. Sollée credits Gage as “the first known suffragist to reclaim the word ‘witch’.”
