Thomas Paine:
Whenever we read the obscene stories, the voluptuous debaucheries, the cruel and tortuous executions, the unrelenting vindictivness with which more than half the Bible is filled, it would be more consistent that we called it the word of a demon than the word of God. It has served to corrupt and brutalize mankind.
Thomas Jefferson:
Christianity neither is, no ever was a part of the common law.
Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man.
Religions are alike – founded upon fables and mythologies.
Robin: “My religion says women should be submiss-“
Batwoman smacks him, yelling, “I’M NOT PART OF YOUR RELIGION.”
What makes a woman a witch? Financial independence, Women aren’t being burnt at the stake any more, but there is still risk and violence implicit in the label ‘witch’ by Lucianne Tonti, 25 Jul 2026, The Guardian
When Katherine Harrison’s husband passed away, she became the wealthiest woman in Wethersfield, Connecticut. Rather than wallow in her new status as a young widow she decided to run the farm she’d inherited on her own. She took up ranching and a slew of other hobbies including brewing ale, spinning yarn and beekeeping. She traded honey and beeswax for candles. She was by all accounts, headstrong, outspoken and clever.
In many corners of the internet, Harrison’s interests are having a moment. Craft brewers have been spruiking classic ales for years, urban beekeeping is surging in popularity, and people are looking to textile-based crafts as ways to practise mindfulness.
But Harrison was a single woman and mother of three daughters who, in a notable contrast to today’s tradwives, felt she did not need a man. Her independence, wealth – and the fact that she practised astrology – make her hobbies seem less like those of a good wife and more like those of a good witch.
Unfortunately, Harrison lived in the 17th century when fear and paranoia dominated the New England colonies. 
Fear and paranoia, stoked by religious fairy tales and hate, and religious mad men (e.g. Kevin Roberts, Heritage Fdn, and Hegseth’s insane woman-hating pastor), still rule much of today’s world – just look at Nazi USA and the endless “christian” kid raping Republicans who are also pro mass murder of anyone not white, and anyone not Christian, including babies. Mark Carney is another vile religious misogynistic “christian” monster who secretly tried to bring up vile piece of shit Kevin Roberts, to brainwash and propagandize his cabinet. First thing Carney did when he got into power was decimate funding for women’s programs, just like Herr Nazi misogynistic Harper did. And then, there’s “christian” Pee Pee and his hate-filled con party. Religion is cruel and nasty to those hated in the fairy tales; it’s criminal to allow it to contaminate gov’t and schools.
Jamil Jivani, “christian” Canadian lawyer and MP and bestie of creepy new catholic “christian” VP USA JD Vance, holding the bible in Parliament; & his hero, Kid Rapist “christian” Trump, holding a bible (up-side-down) to con his deeply religious hate-filled MAGAts.
It was a time when a woman’s refusal to conform to puritanical, patriarchal norms made her vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft. In 1668, more than two decades before the Salem witch trials kicked off 200km north, Harrison was arrested and put on trial for witchcraft.
In 2024 I visited Harrison’s land in Wethersfield, one of the first stops I made on a research trip for my book Good Witch. Over three years, I spoke to dozens of experts, travelled from Connecticut to Massachusetts and then across the seas to Scotland, England, Denmark and the far north of Norway. Each place was touched by the European witch trials that spanned the 15th to 18th centuries, where 80% of the approximately 80,000 to 100,000 people tried were women.
While there were many causative factors in the witch-hunts – patriarchy, economic hardship, and religious and political tensions, to name a few – a woman’s financial independence and power made her vulnerable. Sometimes this independence was realised through inheritance, sometimes her proficiency at work.
Harrison’s initial charges were dismissed, but she was summoned before the court again the following year. The indictment alleged she had “familiarity with Satan … and by his help acted things beyond the ordinary course of nature”. The wide-ranging accusations included divination and healing; people said they’d seen her likeness appearing in their beds at night.
Modern witchcraft has surfaced as a dreamy symbol of female intuition, but there is still risk and violence implicit in the label
It was alleged she had asked for the devil’s help to make her work more profitable and to hinder the work of her neighbours. More than one witness mentioned being suspicious of her skills as a spinner, several men accused her of bewitching them to impede their trades as weavers and one tailor claimed she bewitched him to incorrectly sew sleeves on a jacket seven times in a row.
During the trial, it was clear her neighbours’ accusations of witchcraft lacked evidence and were mostly based on petty grievances, jealousy and superstition. Although she was convicted the magistrate spared her life, citing weak evidence, and banished her from Wethersfield instead.
Harrison’s case is emblematic of a pattern in the witch-hunts of colonial New England. In an analysis of the trials, the US historian Carol F Karlsen found that, although it was rare for women to inherit property, when they did, they were more susceptible to witchcraft allegations.
Women from families without male heirs (Harrison had three daughters) made up 64% of the females prosecuted, 76% of those who were found guilty, and 89% of those who were executed.
The pattern reflects how “these women were aberrations in a society with an inheritance system designed to keep property in the hands of men,” writes Karlsen, in her 1987 book The Devil in the Shape of a Woman.
It’s still that way in many families. Mine, a deeply misogynistic, poor, uneducated and thus fearful of the bible, god and Jesus, raised me to be the family sevant because I am female, and at the end, left everything to my brother, spoiled rotten shit who became abusive towards me and my dogs because I refused to be his unpaid servant. I will never forgive my family for their fucking misogyny, and I will never forgive religions for their kid raping abusive controlling misogynistic Nazi shit.
That Harrison’s business endeavours are prevalent in her trial notes speaks to another pattern. “Like midwives, healers and female religious leaders, women who turned their traditional skills to profit placed themselves in competition with men – and in positions of vulnerability to witchcraft accusations,” writes Karlsen.
Women’s work was a factor in witchcraft allegations in Europe too. A Cambridge University study by Dr Philippa Carter found that women’s employment options in the 16th and 17th centuries – healthcare, food preparation, dairy production and livestock management – all came with a higher risk of witchcraft accusations.
Rather than relying on legal records, which painted a one-sided picture, Carter used the casebooks of a medical practitioner and astrologer, Richard Napier, who recorded at least 1,714 incidents of suspected bewitchment from 1597 to 1634. Work in dairying and medicine were naturally prone to spoilage and disease. These ordinary outcomes were viewed as corruption induced by bad magic: “corrupt blood made wounds rankle and corrupt milk made ill-scented cheese,” she writes.
A woman’s daily tasks would often see her crisscrossing between homes, bake houses and marketplaces, and these frequent interactions with neighbours also increased the chances of becoming embroiled in conflicts and labelled a witch.Humans are a shitty abusive fucked up species, largely because of religion. Criminalize religion, not women!
Across Europe, women’s work in medicine would be maligned as witchcraft by institutions – like the church and academia – too. Wise women once enjoyed prominence and reverence in their communities for treating ailments with herbal remedies and prayers, delivering babies, performing minor surgeries and setting bones.
But in 1325, Pope John XXII wrote a letter to Bishop Stephen of Paris, warning him that women who were practising medicine without formal education were in fact practising witchcraft and asking him to forbid them from doing so.
In the centuries that followed, regulations concerning who could legitimately study and practise medicine were tightened further. Since women were barred from academic institutions, they were effectively barred from the medical profession too.
Eventually, the marginalisation of and attacks on female healers would culminate in witchcraft prosecutions, like in Scotland when the healer Agnes Sampson – another widow – was put on trial by King James VI in the North Berwick witch trials of 1590.
She was accused of participating in a gathering of witches with the devil, where it was alleged they had cast spells to raise storms and sink the ships of King James as he sailed home from Denmark-Norway with his new bride, Princess Anne. James ordered that Sampson be tortured, and under immense duress she confessed.
Of the 53 offences she was indicted with, over half focused on her practice as a healer.
What we see in Sampson’s case is evidence of how societybrain washed to hate women by religion maligned women’s labour as witchcraft and punished women for their feminine power. Accusations of witchcraft were wielded as threats against women like Harrison, who dared to defy the social structures that limited their participation in the workforce, and inheritance structures that kept property in male ownership.
Historically it’s been dangerous for women to reach for financial independence and status. While modern witchcraft, from tarot cards to astrology, has surfaced in the zeitgeist as a dreamy symbol of female intuition and girlhood, there is still risk and violence implicit in the label.
Women aren’t being burnt at the stake any moreI believe they will be again under Trump and Carney (who bends to his every demand), MAGAts, Fucker Trucker Separatists, etc. Likely the first to be burned at the stake will be Epstein victims, or other victims of rape by powerful men, and those supporting the rape victims., but as we saw in June on the billboards across Melbourne depicting Victorian premier Jacinta Allan in a black pointed hat, when people want to take a woman’s power away, they’ll still call her a witch.
Unacceptable misogyny: A ‘Ditch the Witch’ billboard targeting Jacinta Allan is all too familiar
“Ditch the Witch” Billboard Sparks Fury Across Melbourne
@truthseeker73863.bsky.social:
The right wingers can stick it up their greedy a$$e$. Ditch the witch, Harper, Manning, the right wingers can stick their panels and the corrupt AF UCP where the sun don’t shine. Sick of these cheating, lying grifters
- Good Witch: In Search of Our Lost Feminine Power by Lucianne Tonti is available in Australia now through Simon & Schuster
@tasdevilsrgr8.bsky.social:
Everyone who said “Ditch the witch” or its equivalent, or just adjacent to those who did, is responsible for this
From ‘Ditch the Witch’ to inciting rape this is what the normalisation of misogyny looks like by Rita Nasr, June 2026, Women’s Agenda
We began this week with a billboard. A truck rolling through the streets of Melbourne, funded to the tune of $105,000 by a group that includes a brothel owner, bearing the image of Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan photoshopped into a witch’s hat. The slogan on the billboard was “Ditch the Witch”.
We ended the week with graffiti on a Melbourne tram stop timetable. The words were “Rape Jacinta Allan”.
That is how fast this goes. That is how quickly the dial moves when we allow misogynistic language to go unchallenged. While political leaders were busy issuing statements condemning the billboard, the comment sections on newspaper articles and social media pages were busy doing something else entirely. They were justifying it, celebrating it and inviting worse.
Liana Papoutsis, a counsellor, academic, founding member of Victoria’s Victim Survivors’ Advisory Council, and a woman with lived experience of family violence, highlighted what our national conversation continues to shy away from: that the misogyny directed at a woman in power and the misogyny that kills women behind closed doors are not separate phenomena. She was met, as women who tell hard truths so often are, with derision. But Liana isn’t wrong, she says, “The language we use in public life teaches people what women are worth. When we dehumanise women on trucks and tram stops, we are telling every perpetrator of family violence that the culture is on their side.”
The proof was in the comments section. The woman who replied beneath Liana’s video “You are wildly incorrect in every single way. Also, Jacinta Allan deserves everything she gets” is not an anomaly. She is a symptom of a culture that has marinated so long in the normalisation of gendered hatred that some women have internalised it completely, and become its most enthusiastic defenders.
The culture is on their side. Look at the evidence.
We are in June 2026. Approximately 30 women have already been killed in Australia this year at the hands of family violence. Thirty women. Thirty daughters, sisters, mothers, partners. And we are debating whether calling a female Premier a witch is really that bad. Whether those uncomfortable with misogyny need to “suck it up, sweetheart” — thank you, Pauline, for providing the roadmap to exactly where dismissiveness of this kind leads.
The United Nations has made clear that femicide does not happen in isolation. Femicide sits on a continuum of violence that begins with controlling behaviour, threats, and harassment, including online harassment. Language is the foundation of that continuum. It is how abusers construct a world in which their targets are not fully human, where a Premier is a witch, where a woman in power deserves whatever, she gets, where a tram stop can advertise sexual violence as casually as it advertises train times.
After I went public with my lawsuit against AER, Alberta gov’t and Encana/Ovintiv, numerous men, usually in groups (too chicken shit to do it alone), invaded my private property trying to threaten me to drop my lawsuit and stop speaking publicly about Encana’s, the gov’ts and AER’s crimes. I know that if I were a man, not one fucking bully piece of shit, here in Alberta or overseas, would have threatened me, and for sure would never have appeared on my doorstep
When young girls walk past that tram stop timetable, they are not just seeing graffiti. They are receiving a lesson on how the world views women who step into public life. When teenage boys see it, some of them, particularly those already navigating the poisoned waters of online misogyny and toxic masculinity, have something confirmed that they were beginning to believe. They see that it is permitted and, in some corners of this culture, celebrated.
There is no version of this that is “just words.” Words have always been the architecture of violence.
Legacy media bears its share of responsibility here. The rot that we now see cascading through the unmoderated sewers of social media comment sections did not emerge from nowhere. It was cultivated in newsrooms and on opinion pages that, over decades, decided that gendered contempt for women in leadership was good copy. That it was sharp. That it sold papers. And now it sells something far more dangerous.I think religions are more to blame than media.
And here is where I find myself arriving at a profound and painful hypocrisy. I advocate for more women to enter politics. I believe deeply that more women at decision-making tables means better policy, more representative government, a democracy that actually reflects the nation it governs. I have said it in rooms and on platforms, and I will keep saying it because it is true.
But why would any woman want to do this?
Why would any woman, looking at what Jacinta Allan has endured this week from the billboard, to the graffiti, the comment sections, the men who funded a $105,000 campaign of gendered humiliation, look at that and think yes, that is a role I want? And the Victorian state election is still five months away. This is the just the beginning.
I am tired of the cycle of outrage, condemnation, statements, and then the next escalation. I am tired of the woman in the comment section who doesn’t see herself in the graffiti on the tram stop, who thinks her willingness to call another woman a witch protects her from the same fate. It does not.In my direct experience, women are the nastiest misogynists, and seem to eat religious misogyny four times a day.
You do not have to like Jacinta Allan’s politics. You are not required to vote for her. Democracy exists precisely so that you can disagree loudly and hold leaders accountable. But accountability looks like scrutiny, debate, policy critique not a photoshopped witch’s hat, not sexual violence scrawled across public infrastructure.
No woman and no person deserves this.
This is about what kind of country we are choosing to be, in the months between now and November, and in every election and every comment section and every tram stop after that. Thirty women this year alone have told us where this leads in the most devastating language possible.
