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Title: Witch, Slut, Murderer
Author: Hêlîn Asî
Date: June 28, 2018
Language: en
Topics: anarcha-feminism, feminist
Source: http://theregion.org/article/13623-witch-slut-child-murderer-shaming-other-tools-of-patriarchy

Hêlîn Asî

Witch, Slut, Murderer

Patriarchy does not merely subsist on structures which are out of our

influence and control. In fact, the patriarchal mindset is one that has

been passed on over societies and generations, and one which changes its

character depending on the historical place and time. Today, we are

confronted with other mechanisms of oppression than the ones which

prevailed 50, 100 or 500 years ago. At the same time though, there are

certain parallels and patterns which have survived over the centuries

and which reveal the manner in which the war on women, their thoughts

and bodies has been conducted. The repression and exploitation of women,

through which the establishment of the patriarchal system has been made

possible, can be traced back to thousands of years. The development of

this system can be deduced from the erasure of female key figures and

divinities in the mythologies, and can also be witnessed later from the

devaluation of ‘femininity’, of the natural and corporal in (mostly

Western) philosophy and, not least, from the witch hunts of Europe which

started in the late Middle Age. When looking at the ideological and

psychological means of war, which have been used against women* in the

last 5000 years, we can recognize certain patterns with which we are

also similarly confronted with today.

To name it concretely, we can speak of a demonization of women,

accompanied by the shaming and degradation of women. In the historical

analysis of patriarchy the hegemonic-male historical narrative portrays

women as passive factors, which have in no way and no time put up

resistance. Moreover, the patriarchal system is being understood as

natural and god-given. Yet there is the other side of the coin, which

would have remained hidden if it wasn’t for feminists revealing this

history of resistance in the last decades. The history of patriarchy is

at the same time the history of a war against the rebelling body and the

resistant spirit.

Among others, the Kurdish women’s movement has analysed the remarkable

depiction of female figures in the Sumerian, Babylonian, Indian and

Greek mythologies. They speak of a crash that happened in the

mythologies, a crash which destroyed the image of the worshipped Goddess

and started ascribing predominantly destructive attributes to her. From

this crash the beginning of the patriarchal society can be detected.

Today, when we inform ourselves about the goddesses of the mythologies,

we come upon contradicting traditions. Many powerful, strong goddesses

are at the same time described as devious and almost demonic. A good

example of this lies in the Indian goddesses Durga and Kali, which are

described as independent and strong figures who, unlike other goddesses,

do not have a spouse or a male equivalent. The goddess Durga symbolizes

life and death, kindliness and punishment at the same time. Similarly,

Kali, who is said to be born from the brow and from the anger of Durga,

is a goddess of creation and renewal, but also of death and destruction.

Both of them symbolize sexuality and shakti, which is primordial female

energy, but thereby rather representing the dark and destructive side of

shakti in the first place. In some cases, they are described as loudly

laughing, wreckful and demonically dancing figures. On the opposite,

there are goddesses like Sita, who is rather described as being tame and

standing for fidelity, fertility and fortitude.

The goddesses Kali and Durga are not the only examples showing us that

the portrayal of strong female goddesses go along with demonization in

many cases. The Sumerian goddess Lilith, which is at the same time the

first woman in Jewish mythology, puts up resistance against submission

and stands for independence and sexual freedom. In later depictions, she

is feared as a demon, seductress or child murderess. This pattern of

demonization of female self-determination, strength and free sexuality

managed to live through over centuries, until the Middle Age in Europe,

where one of the bloodiest and cruellest campaigns in the history of

patriarchy took place.

In the beginning of capitalism, the war on the rebellious body was

intensified when they tried to exploit and turn every creative,

constructive energy of the human into labour power. Before and during

this time there were widespread beliefs of vivid energies in nature and

natural forces like magicians and, especially, witches. In her book

“Caliban and the Witch”, Silvia Federici (*1942) writes that the

practice of magic was not compatible with the evolving capitalist order

and work. Capitalism, a system that calculates, logically prognosticates

and concludes and disciplines, was opposing witchcraft, which was then

considered lawless, unpredictable, chaotic and evil. As a result of the

demonization of rebellious women, there was a sexist campaign and witch

hunt, which is often forgotten in the analysis of the history of

capitalism. Rebellious women who did not conform to the social norms

were labelled as witches by their own relatives and neighbours.

‘Promiscuity’, having ‘illegitimate’ children, strong bonds between

women, wisdom and knowledge about nature, being connected to nature, the

possession of cats (thousands of cats have been murdered as well!),

prostitution, adultery, living without a man or having a ‘bad record’ in

society were all seen as evidence for being a witch. A witch was also a

woman who was not submissive, who disagreed, defended herself or swore.

Witches were in some way a symbol of resistance against the patriarchal

order. Their resistance was answered with degradation and shaming. The

execution of 60.000 witches was a public act, a name and shame event,

where the women who have been excluded from society were burned at the

stake. The punishment and torture of witches aimed at demonizing and

humiliating them. Nature, magic, witches and women, which until then

used to be important parts of life – were destroyed and degraded as part

of the development of capitalism and the emergence of rationalist

science.

Also in Western philosophy, the devaluation of nature, the body and

everything material went along with the devaluation of women, who were

declared unreasonable, irrational, unstable, unpredictable and

compulsive beings. Philosophers, scientists, psychoanalysts and many

more engaged in this. All these methods of defamation and demonization

of women through shaming, accusation, subjugation and objectification

survived over the centuries. Also the present society is not spared from

the idea that a woman who lives a self-determined, free and independent

life, who organizes and allies herself with other women, argues, shouts,

disagrees, discusses, decides over her own body, decides over her love

and sex life or does in other forms resist the sexist norms, should be

‘ashamed’. Shaming, humiliation, exposure (keyword: revenge porn) and

accusations have always been tools of the patriarchal system, which

should definitely be analysed more intensively in order to fight them.

The manner and extent changes depending on cultural and social

realities, but to name only a few examples, women* often are seen as a

mirror of the ‘honour’ and ‘pride’ of her family. What a woman* wears,

who she spends time with, whom she loves or if she loves, whom she

marries or not marries and many other grotesque standards determine her

reputation in society. She is judged – and this is something almost

every one of us does – for the way she dresses, for her body, for the

way she walks, laughs or dances and especially for her decisions

concerning her sexual life. This is not only due to the fact that our

society has a distorted relationship on the subject of sexuality in

general, which is increasingly shaped by perversion and demonstrations

of power, but especially when it comes to the sexuality of women*. Her

sexual life determines her so-called purity, and as soon as she moves

away from the social norms she is seen as impure. This is part of an old

pattern which we can recognize as far back as to mythology. The image

the society has of women* is that of an extremely ambivalent and

unpredictable being. On the one hand, she is seen as a symbol of

fertility, purity, groundedness and maternal love, while only being

socially accepted with these attributes. On the other hand, at the

latest when a woman begins to resist, the other side of the coin

reveals, where she is being labelled as an uncontrollable, ‘hysterical’,

devious, impure and diabolic being which has to be controlled and

subordinated. Between these ‘poles of femininity’ there seem to be no

grey areas, and through the creation of the ‘slut-saint’-dichotomy the

psychological and emotional pressure on women* is even more intensified.

Shaming, embarrassment and accusation are the means of war which the

sexist society uses in every part of life. The sense of shame and guilt

are supposed to break her spirit, to subjugate her (collective)

resistance and to weaken her self-confidence.

It is up to us and coming generations of revolutionary feminists and the

youth to reveal these and other means of war by the patriarchy and to

put up a collective resistance against them. Witch, bitch, slut, child

murderess – or whatever name they give us – let us ourselves determine

our names, colours, spirits, lives and revolution and rebel against the

disenchantment of life and the world, against the artificial hierarchies

and powers.