When we think of a witch, the image of the old crone, the wizened woman of the female trilogy, manifests directly in our mind’s eye. We rarely think first of young, blonde witches like Samantha in Bewitched or Glinda, the Good Witch in The Wizard of Oz. Nope.
We see the evil queen carrying her basket of poisoned apples to innocent Snow White. We see the Wicked Witch of the West flying on her broomstick, with her winged monkeys, chasing Dorothy and her friends, Tin Woodman, the Cowardly Lion, Scarecrow and little Toto. We see the squinty-eyed old woman of “Hansel and Gretel” heating up her black oven, preparing to eat the candy-fattened children.
We see the negative, desperate, rejected vision of how a woman can end up: ugly, lonely, bitter. These images of the witch, multiplied and repeated from fairy tales to children’s animated movies are a warning to girls: don’t cultivate and express your individual power or this is what you will become.
The patriarchal world seems to have always been afraid of this classic archetype of feminine power. Synonyms for witch include other less-than-flattering terms: hag, old bat, fury, gorgon, harridan, ogress, harpy, shrew, nag and bitch. But a witch doesn’t erupt from her witchy-mother’s womb already 100-years-old. While society likes to portray the witch that way, her power diminished by age, warts, and dementia, the more dangerous version of her is an earlier incarnation: the maiden witch. Words we associate with this witch include sorceress, enchantress, vixen, gypsy, and hellcat.
The young witch is first and foremost a sensual, sexual creature, her power centered directly in her femininity. She is beautiful, self-assured, powerful. She knows how to “bewitch” and seduce men. A siren, her feminine allure is more powerful than the strongest man’s fist. She can tame the wild man, like Circe does in The Odyssey, turning the Greek hero’s men into swine—beasts who are easily controlled. She can tempt, beguile and “charm” with her pretty face, her scantily-clad, curvaceous body, her tender touch, her soft voice. Her body and voice are her weapons and men are powerless to resist her.
What woman wouldn’t admire the maiden witch? Most women are born physically weaker than men, with less upper body strength and shorter legs. Before the invention of birth control, we spent a large portion of our adult lives physically-dependent on men during our many months of pregnancy (both of my great-grandmothers gave birth to more than a dozen children and had even more pregnancies!). In a basic physical challenge between a man and a woman, the man holds most of the power.
I remember learning that fact of life when I was nineteen, after spending my childhood and teen years being as tough as the boys. Heading back to the dorms from a college hockey game one cold January night, I got held down in the freezing snow, along with another woman, during a rowdy snow fight. One guy against two girls, and he won, handily. My girlfriend and I had snow stuffed down every piece of clothing we wore. And I was doing only one thing during the attack—trying with all my might to escape. I couldn’t. I remember thinking, “Crap! When did the boys get so much stronger than the girls?”
That’s when I learned as a woman, that the playing field between men and women is best leveled psychologically and emotionally, rather than physically. Over thousands of years, woman has long managed her relationship with man through her mastery of words and body language. Spells and chants are but the bows and arrows a woman carries from the boardroom to the bedroom.
Mastering the power of language’s effects on emotions, along with enhancing our physical appeal to men, or in other words, empowering our inner maiden witch, empowers us as women. I am a woman, I want to wield my own power among men, and therefore I am necessarily a witch.
Now if only I could wiggle my nose and the house would be clean, I’d really be happy.