Mother of Witches: Feminist Witchcraft and Matlida Joslyn Gage

Matilda Joslyn Gage was a major women’s suffrage leader, collaborating with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. In 1893 she published Woman, Church and State: a Historical Account of the Status of Woman through the Christian Ages: with Reminiscences of Matriarchate, the results of her research into women’s political oppression. She presents a historical overview of structural injustices underlying the current social condition, in which women are oppressed and disenfranchised along-side other excluded persons, including African Americans and Native Americans. Here I investigate her trajectory from ancient patriarchy through present oppressions, including a passionate chapter on to the European witch trials, which, among other influences, is the source of the infamously incorrect assertion that “nine million” people were executed. The text remains foundational for feminist Witchcraft communities and for popular understandings of historical trials, especially the idea that women tried for witchcraft were actually practicing an ancient, Goddess religion.