Salem was not about misogyny

(History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes)

A recent, post on medium.com (here) argued that the Salem witch trials were about misogyny and then drew a straight line from there to the overturning of Roe v. Wade decision in the USA.

The lessons to be learnt from Salem are about the dangers of a single hegemonic ideology, social contagion, moral panics, ‘believe women,’ and feminine forms of aggression.

Colonial New England at that time was strongly religious. Indeed, the New England colonies were founded by separatists who sought to purify the Anglicanism of the Church of England and diversity of thought was not tolerated. Church attendance was mandatory and Sunday services lasted all day. In short, there was a single hegemonic ideology that you questioned at your peril.

The Salem witch trials began in 1692, in colonial New England, when a group of young girls claimed to be possessed by the devil and then began to accuse members of the community of being witches. It started when Elizabeth Parris and Abigail Williams displayed odd behaviour and convulsions and then other girls in the community began to display similar symptoms – the social contagion phase.

The affected girls then began to accuse others of bewitching them. Initially, they pointed the finger at Parris’s Carribean slave Tituba followed by homeless beggar Sarah Good and then Sarah Osborn. From there the contagion spread via coerced confessions. When the accused were brought into court there were grand displays or contortions, writhings and grimaces from the young girls who were giving evidence.

The first to be sentenced to death by hanging by male judges was Bridget Bishop. Thirteen more people were hanged in July and August of that year. The victims were not all female, for example, the elderly Giles Cory was crushed to death with stones as he refused to enter a plea at his trial. The constant feature, however, was that the accusers were all female and their testimony in court was unquestioningly accepted – the ‘believe women phase’.

Salem was also a story about female forms of aggression. Women are less likely to be physically aggressive but they are more likely to be socially aggressive and in a way that is long-lasting and damaging. Reputational destruction is a favourite of the female bully and that is what the girls at Salem were engaged in. Contrary to feminist mythology that women and girls have no power, they have always had the power to point the finger and destroy lives.

Are there any lessons for today? The answer is obviously yes. Feminism has become the hegemonic ideology in large parts of academia and the media and you question it at your peril. Calling into doubt the existence of patriarchy or proposing the greater male variability hypothesis cost Will Knowland and Larry Summers their jobs. This isn’t good for men, obviously. However, it isn’t in the interests of feminism either because all ideologies and all thought systems need to be regularly challenged to keep them ‘honest’. Feminists have been successful in suppressing dissent in a way that has allowed an intellectual rot to take hold.

Human nature hasn’t changed, we are essentially the same human beings who lived in colonial New England and we have the same cognitive shortcomings they had. Social contagion can take hold just as easily, perhaps more easily fuelled by social media. For example, there has allegedly been a spiking epidemic across the UK. Although drugs can be used as an adjunct to date rape most of the reported cases merely woke up at home with an unexplained period of absence. Rather than being touched by the hand of the devil it seems some mysterious being had spiked their drinks merely to watch someone feeling drowsy. Even activist reporters at the BBC did their bit to fuel the contagion with sensational reporting based on trawls through social media. Janice Fiamengo has made these parallels before me though not specifically with the Salem Witch trials – see here. While there may be a real substrate to reports of spiking, toxicology tests rarely corroborate the claims of victims and ancillary evidence is lacking. Where are the syringes and discarded drugs and drug packaging – nowhere to be found it seems.

Then there is the anger of the supposed victims that police insist on due process, that they are not automatically believed by virtue of their sex – ‘believe women’. Due process is essential and nobody has a right to be automatically believed. At Salem the girls’ claims, fuelled by social contagion and fear, were not reliable, the same may be true of claims made during the moral panic surrounding ‘spiking’

There are many lessons to be learnt from the Salem witch trials, but they were not a ‘misogynist echo chamber’ and there is no straight line from there to the overturning of Roe v. Wade. Salem is a warning from the past but not the one feminists think it is.