Where Did Male Witches Go?
Old hags, beldames, weird sisters; the Wicked Witch of the West, Sabrina Spellman, Bellatrix Lestrange, and the Grand High Witch – what do all these have in common? It seems that both the terminology of witchcraft and the portrayal of witches have decided that the witch is female. The brutal, often misogynistic character of the witch trials and female injustice in the witch craze have entrenched the witch–woman paradigm in our cultural conscience. But is witchcraft actually sexist? And if not, where did all the male witches go?