Witch hunts and misogyny

Europe and America constantly seek ways to acknowledge their crimes by transforming the traumas of witch hunts, written into their histories in dark letters, into tourist attractions and motion pictures. Much like the structure built by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor in eastern Norway in memory of the 77 women and 14 men burned on charges of witchcraft between 1662 and 1663; a monument of both confession and shame that reflects the mourning of the horror experienced onto the conscience of the entire world through mirrors surrounding an eternal flame.

(from gallery of Steilneset Memorial / Peter Zumthor)

I wish we could say that this terrifying situation remained only in monuments. When we consider the progress made by civilized societies, witch hunt processes that in no way fit within the boundaries of rational thought still confront us today, albeit with different motifs and different masks.

According to data from the Catholic aid organization Missio Aachen, there are still women in more than 40 countries across different parts of the world, such as the Middle East, South Asia, North Africa, Central Asia, and East Asia, who are subjected to torture and lethal attacks on charges of witchcraft.

By the international Catholic aid organization Missio Aachen 'International Day Against Witchcraft Accusations' August 10, declared as such, derives its significance from the martyrdom of a woman living in a village in Papua New Guinea, who was accused of witchcraft on August 10, 2012, and killed after being tortured for days by the villagers.

The justifications for the witch hunts that still cause femicides today are almost identical to the reasons for the killings between 1610 and 1615, when the Catholic Church dominated the culture, with an estimated death toll between 2,000 and 3,000.

Although the perpetrators attempt to shift the motives onto a religious-spiritual plane, such as demons or spirits, the underlying reasons never go beyond money, competition, inheritance, or claims of ownership over women.

For some reason, the siren call that triggers all the instincts of witch hunters is that of free, independent, strong, capable, and intelligent women. Because it is considered contrary to the nature of things in the eyes of these killers for a being who, until recently, was nameless and bought and sold as property to freely exercise agency over her own life, they attack these women and young girls who exhibit these traits with all their might. 

It is noteworthy that the dominant religious tendency in each of these geographies is not Catholic Christianity. In other words, the reason these women are killed is not specifically because they are members of a particular religion or because they have deviated from the rules of that religion.

Since the typology of women alleged to show signs of witchcraft exhibits almost identical characteristics regardless of religion or culture, these murders cannot be classified as witch hunts; rather, they are reflected in global statistics under the heading of femicide.

So, what is this common chain of curses that causes women to be murdered by men in many different parts of the world, regardless of religion, language, or race?

Instead of analyzing this one by one, defining the common characteristics of these geographies and the framework within which women are expected to remain in these regions would perhaps be a more practical method for explaining the situation.

Although these geographies are generally in the category of economically underdeveloped countries, the economy alone is not a sufficient denominator to explain these events. The common denominator of these murders is that they occur in geographies where religious customs and traditions are dominant within society, and where neurotic irrationality is perceived as acceptable practice within community norms.

To understand the status of women in the world until the very recent past, I think it would not be wrong to start with these verses from the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament:

2:18 "It is not good for Adam to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him." 

2:20 "Adam gave names to all the animals, the birds in the sky, and every creature on earth. But for Adam, no suitable helper was found."

2:21-22 "He caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam. While he was asleep, He took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in its place. From the rib He had taken, He created a woman and brought her to Adam (gifted her)."

by saying this, it "completes the woman's search for meaning in the world."

In other words, in male-dominated culture, woman is a helper gift given to man by the creator so that he would not be alone. The concept doesn't sound foreign, does it? When you dig a little into the writings of Islamic scholars, the word "fitrat" (nature/innate disposition) appears.

They claim woman is a creature of 'fitrat,' making decisions based on her emotions rather than her intelligence or rational abilities, effectively assigning woman a place between human and animal.

She lacks the ability to think and reason, which is why the testimony of a single woman is not accepted in Sharia courts; because she acts according to her 'fitrat,' she cannot make correct decisions. Therefore, in the Islamic tradition, a woman does not have the right to divorce her husband, it is never permissible for her to live alone, and she must absolutely be 'owned' or placed under guardianship.

In short, there are no ifs or buts about it. The position of woman in the male-dominated world has been designated as 'property'. She is an asset that can be bought and sold, given and taken, with a price tag that varies depending on the family she comes from.

Until she marries, all physical usage rights of a woman, excluding sexuality, belong to her father; with the marriage ceremony, all rights, including sexuality, are transferred to her husband.

This gift, purchased for the young man—usually by his father—to be his wife, has no rights such as divorce, unlimited inheritance, traveling alone, birth control, pursuing higher education, working, choosing her own clothes, going out on her own, or meeting with whomever she wishes.

In fact, how much of her body she can show, whether she can show her hair, the length of her skirt, whether she can wear trousers, how she should tie her hair, the tone of voice she should use, whether she can laugh out loud, and whether she can lift her head from the ground while walking are all decided first by her father, then by her husband, and when she grows old, by her son or brothers.

From a young woman whose rights have been stripped away, whose desires have been suppressed, whose potential to be an individual has been ignored, and whose sexuality, physical strength, and entire material and spiritual existence have been placed at the service of her husband, it is expected that she obey willingly and take pleasure in her servitude, despite everything.

Despite such violations of individual rights, a woman's grateful worship of her husband is not a situation that can be explained within the framework of rational thought. The only way to explain this is that a woman who has been subjected to religious and traditional pressures for generations has had her character broken repeatedly since childhood, and through traditional and religious intimidation, she has been subjected to a style of upbringing where she is forced to submit to the commands of an authority far beyond her imagination every single day.

And finally, when she reaches maturity and is asked for from her father, the young woman does not find it strange that one man is asking for her from another man, nor does she find the idea of being 'given away' odd.

Over her tulle white dress, with a red ribbon tied as a seal of virginity, she is officially and certifiedly sent from her father's house to her husband's house. She even responds with love to the chilling sentence whispered into her ear by her father, by falling at his feet: "You cannot return to this house you left in a wedding dress until you are dead."

Isn't it violent? The young girl leaves the door of her home with the pride of having preserved her virginity. She is sent out of her home to have sex that very night with a man she has barely been able to be friends with, never lived in the same house with, never gone on vacation with, never hugged and slept with—in other words, a man she hardly knows.

Like a sacrificial lamb, she is not bothered by the red tulle draped over her face, the gold pinned to her left and right, or being taken by the arm and given away as a man's wife.

After all, doesn't the law crudely "I now pronounce you husband and wife" say? While the man becomes the woman's "husband"—a term that carries an attribute of dominance—the woman becomes his "wife," a term that has been coarsened and degraded to mean someone who belongs to the master. And she does not find this strange either.

In sermons delivered with pleasure among men, "If there were no God, women would worship their husbands" sentence is, for some reason, on the list of the most indispensable. The situation is no different in Christianity or Judaism.

Male-dominated culture never refrains from satisfying its inadequacy and low ego in the face of women with such sentences. While trying to protect this system, which grants them the status of sacred masters, with all their might, they crack the whip of religion and tradition on the shoulders of the women they have rendered helpless, to the point of death.

Women who want to step outside this picture drawn by the male world face the danger of being killed. The reasons for the killing of women who were declared witches and slaughtered in the dark Catholic pages of history were no different from these attempts to step outside the rules.

While the duties of male authorities in the Catholic world are performed by exorcists, old wives, mullahs, and similar opinion leaders in other geographies; according to this type of male understanding, a woman, who is declared property, wanting to disobey her owner and make decisions about her own life is seen by men as a sufficient justification for her murder.

In terms of the justifications for these killings, there is no difference from witch hunts. Since the very beginning of the human story, this hunt, initiated by men who do not see women as their equals simply because of their partial physical superiority, still continues with all its violence.

Distance from rationality and science, the fact that tendencies to live in communities are still determined by religious texts from thousands of years ago, and that dogmatic texts turned into traditions are closed to discussion are listed and known as the reasons behind all these murders; however, this state of knowing is not enough to eliminate the existence of women who were burned on charges of witchcraft, stoned to death in squares for the crime of adultery, murdered under the name of honor killings, enslaved by having their freedoms taken away, pushed into darkness, or forced into suicide.

Men's claims of ownership and mastery over women, and the family structure created in this direction, must be discussed again and again in a systematic way at the level of states, non-governmental organizations, associations, intellectual authorities, schools, universities, and institutions in a world where women make up 50 percent of the population.

This issue should be discussed not only among women, but most importantly among men.

If a man finds pleasure in living with a woman whose freedom he restricts, enslaves, and keeps on a leash, he must first question the masochistic master within his own soul. Because being a master requires having a slave, which is, in any case, a state of madness that involves tyranny.

A person you treat like a slave will not be a life partner to you; they will only be an enemy. If your slave claims to be happy with their situation and acts accordingly, it is because they have lost all hope of escape and feel helpless. I am sure you know that the medical term for this is Stockholm Syndrome.