Latest / gasp! the pod / WITCH! lesbians, witches & their shared culture

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WITCH! lesbians, witches & their shared culture · gasp! the pod

0:00
When I say someone was like practicing witchcraft, it
0:02
doesn't mean they were like Satan, OK?
0:05
They were probably making tea and being like, oh look, the
0:08
moon is full. Hey, witches, welcome to another
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episode of GASP the Pod, the podcast for the gays, the girls,
0:27
and especially the gay girls. I can't tell you how excited I
0:31
am for this episode. And by the way, if you're
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watching on YouTube, you can see that I'm back in my New York
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City apartment, which is super lovely.
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It's like nice being on my little makeshift set in my
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bedroom. Let's get down to business
0:45
because this is like an episode I'm super excited about.
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I have this pretty gorgeous mug from Sleepy Hollow, NY that I'll
0:56
talk about because me and my girlfriend went there last week.
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But this episode is truly all about witches.
1:02
You've probably seen now at the title.
1:04
The title is witchcraft and lesbianism, a shared culture.
1:07
First of all, not all lesbians are witches, obviously.
1:13
So all lesbians are treated like witches.
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That's a fact. The Salem witch trials, as well
1:19
as all of the trials in Europe killed literally almost 100,000
1:25
mostly women and men between the 15th and 17th century.
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That is way more than I knew when I first started doing
1:33
research for this. This was a real violent war on
1:36
women. By the way.
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Guys, these are my own words. Little liberal arts gender
1:41
studies moment here. This was a real actual violent
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war on women. This wasn't like a fake thing
1:49
that happened that inspired the idea of witches, right?
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Like this is real and these are real women that died and it
1:58
really cemented the persecution of women, lesbians, non
2:01
Christians, people of color, feminists, queer people, and
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really anyone that threatened the Christian western man LED
2:09
world for the next 500 years. Truly, the hunt for rooting out
2:14
witches was led by the patriarchy, and we still see its
2:17
effects today through misogyny and, most notably, lesbophobia.
2:22
We're going to dig into all of the shared culture of witches
2:26
and lesbians and talk about their impact on our current pop
2:30
culture. But I also just wanted to, like,
2:34
point out some notes before we get into, like, the meat of the
2:37
episode because there's so much here, right?
2:40
And I just want to talk about, like, what we're going to focus
2:42
on. I use the term lesbian mostly in
2:44
this episode instead of like sapphic or WLW, right, because
2:49
of the distinct experience of the isolation of lesbians from
2:54
the rest of society throughout history.
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And I think it's important to note that distinct identity and
3:00
history, right? But also most of what I talk
3:03
about can be applied to the sapphic community at large.
3:07
Not all women burned at the stake were even witches.
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Most probably wouldn't even identify as witches and even if
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they were witches or practicing witchcraft, they weren't
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necessarily worshipping the devil.
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This is like a huge miss like misconception about what witches
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are that it's like devil worshipping right?
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Not all women viewed as witches are associating with the culture
3:31
or symbolism. Even practice witchcraft.
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But all witches and those accused of being a witch are
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inherently feminist just by the definition of the word and our
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defying generals and expectations for the salvation
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and purity of women. I'm not going to get into Wicca
3:49
as a religion at whole. I'm not super well versed on
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Wicca. I would love to join a coven.
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So if you are part of a coven, let me know.
4:00
And I would love to join it. But yeah, this is more talking
4:04
about like the dehumanization of witches and how it kind of like
4:09
ties to the culture of lesbianism, right?
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And then like, kind of just like the general symbolism and
4:15
experience that witches have gone through throughout like,
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history and like, women at large, right?
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So this is not really diving into like, the actual practice,
4:23
even though the actual practice is like a valid religion that I
4:27
would love to join. I wanted to make this episode in
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the spirit of Halloween because Halloween is like literally in a
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week and a half and witchy and spooky season.
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I've really been in my witch era.
4:36
Me and Sophia, my girlfriend, we went to Sleepy Hollow in New
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York and I don't know if you guys are aware, but Sleepy
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Hollow is like the place where pretty much it looks like
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Halloween town. It looks like a real life
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Halloween town and it is the site of where like the legend of
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the Headless Horseman was like birthed.
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And we did this tour in the like one of the oldest churches in
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America. And the woman giving the tour
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was like exactly who you expect to be giving like, kind of like
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a ghost tour in like a witchy town.
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There's something gay about it, right?
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So she was like definitely sapphic, super femme wearing
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like gothic clothing. We were like love.
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And she was like talking about this one witch who was suspected
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of being a witch in the town. I think she like died in the
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Revolutionary War. And everyone's suspected of her
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being a witch, but she actually wasn't.
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She was just like a woman. But anyways, I was like, Oh my
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God, this would be such a great episode to talk about.
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And what was so funny is our tour guide literally was like
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this. She goes, the witch trials were
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when women went like this and people died.
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I thought that was like a pretty good sum up of what happened.
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OK, so let's get into the meat of it.
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We're going to talk about the origin of witches, the witch
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trials, and who was accused, the lasting effects of the
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demonization of witches and lesbians throughout culture and
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popular media. The shared culture of lesbians
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and witches 'cause there's a lot like it's a circle.
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The Venn diagram is a circle. The reclamation of witches and
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witchcraft by lesbians and sapphics.
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Today last night I was watching witch documentaries and I wish I
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could talk about this for hours. So I think I say this about
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every topic. Let's talk about the origin of
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witches. The term witch comes from the
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old English word wiki Wicke. In modern literature, the term
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can refer to a woman who is alluring and capable of
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bewitching others. So we're really going to see
6:35
these common themes of like women being viewed as seducers
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and boiled down to their like sexuality and how that's a
6:45
dangerous. Do you see the connection to
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lesbianism here? In neo Pagan religions like
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Wicca the term is used to refer to a female follower.
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So obviously beyond like the stereotype of like a witch, a
6:58
witch is also just a name for someone who's a Wiccan right?
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A female witch love. The Bible contains some of the
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earliest records of witches which is interesting, including
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the story of King Saul and the Witch of Ender.
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I don't know, I think I read the Bible once, but I made room in
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my brain for other things. Other Bible verses condemn
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witches and caution against using them to contact the dead.
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That was like another stereotype, but also that these
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like witches were the gateways to like hell, which was reviewed
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as a threat to religion and Christianity.
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The idea of witches who use dark forces to harm others predates
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Christianity, I guess. Homer's Odyssey describes Cersei
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as a witch who turns men to animals.
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Basically women who don't abide by men and are viewed as evil
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and a threat to men. This is like a common theme
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throughout history and like the association of witches.
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However, which is really interesting when I was doing
7:54
further research on this, is that witches or goddesses or
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divine healers or fortune tellers or wise women or any of
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these like women that were more connected to the earth and
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spirituality throughout history and like ancient history were
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viewed relatively positively by society.
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Like I guess in like ancient times, like a war couldn't break
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out unless someone consulted their like local witch.
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And when I say which you know, like again, this term can be
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used for so many different things, but pretty much it's
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just like a smart woman and it makes sense.
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Like women are the gateways to the furthering of society.
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Like we create life. It makes sense that we're like
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wise and in touch with nature and like spiritual.
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This idea of witches was really flipped kind of when Christian
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society, Christian western imperialism like took over the
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world. Another thing they fucking did,
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medieval and early modern Europe, witches were often women
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accused of using black magic against their community.
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And there was like a shift. Patriarchy church used women as
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a scapegoat for the plague. They were like, why is the
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plague happening? Who could it be?
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These fucking women? They blamed witches and women
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for giving the devil access to society.
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So again, we see this like connection with like women and
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the devil. And of course, it's like
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Christianity is very focused on controlling women's sexuality.
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Like everyone's supposed to be a virgin and pure.
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So this idea that there's like, there's single women out here is
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a threat to Christianity that was viewed as like the devil's
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gateway and the reason why the plague broke out.
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Witch trials and like the persecution of witches didn't
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really start until like medieval early modern Europe.
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And these accusations were often made by like, neighbors and
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people who accused women, but it was rooted in social tensions,
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not really based on like, seeing someone do witchcraft usually,
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right? Were these women actually
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witches or were they even practicing witchcraft?
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And again, there's like many different ways that like even
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the word witchcraft is like a loose word.
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Like, what is witchcraft, right? Some people think it's just
10:14
women reading and then others it's like an actual religious
10:17
practice. So like, there's some Gray area
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here. We don't know.
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Most of these women were probably not even practicing
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witchcraft when I say witchcraft.
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And like what they were accused of doing witchcraft.
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It was like being wise, being natural healers, making tea, you
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know what I mean? Like, that was like, that's like
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witchcraft, like astrology, right?
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Witchcraft is not like worshipping the devil.
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But even these, like, simple ways that we would view
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witchcraft today, if they were doing that back then, that was
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like worshipping the devil. So just a reminder that like
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when I say someone was like practicing witchcraft, it
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doesn't mean they were like Satan, OK?
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They were probably making tea and being like, oh, look, the
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moon is full. And obviously there's some
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people who are like, very much a part of like, Wicca.
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But again, not worshipping the devil.
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OK. If they were practicing
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witchcraft, was it even evil? OK, Because a lot of, like, what
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witchcraft and Wicca is, is just like, connection to, like, the
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earth and spirituality and, like, female energy, not the
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devil. Let's talk about the witch
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trials. I think this is like what mostly
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people think about when we think about witches, and we need to
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talk about who was accused as being a witch.
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OK. Witch hunts became common in the
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15th century, kind of like I said before, like this rise of
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Christian Western patriarchal imperialism that like, crushed
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down female sexuality and then needed to like, root out the
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devil and used women as a way to do that.
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And this happened mostly in the Western world, in Europe and the
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colonies of the US. Around 80,000 suspected witches
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were killed. So like, think about how many
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were suspected. Like probably half a million.
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Like, this is a huge amount of European Society.
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Like there were reports of like entire cities burning for
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months. This was like a war that we
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don't talk about enough, like history classes.
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Like this wasn't like, Oh my God, we like killed a few
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witches, even though that that's like not funny at all.
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But like this was, this was a real tangible thing.
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OK. Accusations, like I said, were
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based on social norms and societal tensions, and women
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were used as scapegoats to real societal problems.
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People, it's important to note that everyone in society
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believed in the devil and witches and some supernatural
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force being the reason why things are bad.
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So they need an excuse and they needed someone to blame it on
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And oh look, there's that lonely older woman who's never married
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and also like doesn't wear dresses, which Europe they were
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burned at the stake. There was this idea that you
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need to like, root out the evil out of the person.
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And then that was only like rooted out if you could burn the
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witch. But in the Americas, they were
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hung. So like, I have all the sources
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of this. I'm not going to like, read them
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out because that would be so fucking boring.
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So maybe I'll put them in the notes or something, but someone
13:29
let me know if they want their sources on this.
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They were tortured horrendously in Europe.
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In Europe they brought back medieval torture devices in like
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the 1716 hundreds and 1700s that had been banned for hundreds of
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years just to torture witches. Like it's truly the most God
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awful thing I've ever heard in my life.
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We do not talk about the historical persecution of women
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enough. This killed some of our greatest
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minds. There was also this idea of
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swimming the witch. I think we've all heard this.
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So like they would tie rocks to accused witches for them in the
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river. If they sunk and died it meant
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that they didn't have supernatural forces and that
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they were innocent but they were dead so it's too late.
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And if they somehow survive and they were witch and then they
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were burned at the stake so it's like either way you're literally
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fucking screwed. Isn't that just life for women?
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01 more thing about the European witch trials.
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There is apparently one town in Germany where like the
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Inquisition came in to root out the witches.
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Like this was a systematic war on women.
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I'm not saying this in like a it's like a metaphorical war.
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This was an actual war on women going on for hundreds of years
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and after the Inquisition came in there were no women left in
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the town. That's fucking crazy.
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Moving on, Salem witch trials, these were a series of hangings
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and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft.
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And there were some men accused of witchcraft and sometimes it
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just came to like association or like if they were suspicious or
15:13
whatever. But obviously most that were
15:15
target targeted were women. In colonial Massachusetts
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between February 1692 and May 1693, more than 200 people were
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accused. 30 people were found guilty, 19 were hung.
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So obviously this is less than than what happened in the last
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few 100 years in Europe. But I think it's more notable
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just because of like, I don't know, the eeriness of Salem.
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I don't know. And not even necessarily more
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notable, but more, there's more lore around it, right?
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The youngest killed in these trials was a four year old girl.
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Like they truly didn't believe that you could be innocent.
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They believed that these women and girls were the devil.
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OK, so this colony was a Puritan colony.
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In society. Everyone believed in witches and
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witchcraft, and we're taught to be scared of them.
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In this like Puritan society, the accused could be anyone, but
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mostly women. And how this story kind of came
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about and like why there was a series of so many trials in just
16:21
a few months was from the daughters of the like the priest
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of the entire colony, right? I think he was a priest whatever
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of the religious leader of the colony.
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And these girls said and claimed that they learned witchcraft
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from this enslaved woman. And again, there's some obvious
16:47
racial reasons to the accusations here, but the
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witchcraft that they said they were being taught is so benign,
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it's crazy. So the witchcraft was pouring
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egg whites into a glass of water, Heaven forbid stirring
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it, looking at the egg whites going around in the glass and
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then like, looking through it and being like, oh, what shapes
17:12
do I see? So it's literally just women
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being creative. And like, heaven forbid this
17:17
enslaved woman is like having some pastime and it's turned
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into witchcraft and evil. So there's this one young girl
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who looks in there, sees a coffin and is like, oh, no.
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And goes and tells her family. And her family's like, we need
17:35
to find this witch and root out the witches because the girl
17:41
starts having like, hallucinations and she's going
17:43
crazy. There's two theories, one that
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she might have had like a psychotic episode or two, these
17:52
are the girls, or two, that this was a planted way to root out a
17:59
certain sector of society. It's very interesting that the
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lot of the people that were accused of being witches were in
18:07
one like political faction of the colony.
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So it's very, very possible that this whole idea that all of
18:18
these specific people were witches was created to root out
18:22
this political party, which is not the craziest idea.
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This kind of turned the colony into a frenzy because anyone who
18:31
was questioned about being a witch, they were forced to say,
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like, who else taught you this? Who else is a witch?
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And then, like, under this pressure and under this torture,
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they would just start naming other names.
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So there was this big fear that the devil was living amongst us
18:47
and we needed to figure out who was the witch.
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And it turned into this huge crazy thing.
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The people that were accused were simply people that were
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different from the rest of the society.
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And it was mostly women of color, servants, enslaved women,
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older women, women who lived outside of the village and who
19:07
didn't have like, traditional families, women without kids,
19:11
women who were less feminine presenting, right?
19:13
Maybe those who had jobs that were like, man jobs, right?
19:18
Are we seeing the tie to lesbianism, lesbians and suffix
19:23
as we know it now? Like literally lesbians, healers
19:28
are midwives. So women that were had closer
19:31
access to children and they use these natural remedies from
19:34
nature and they were viewed as like doing magic.
19:37
And this was a challenge to Christianity, right?
19:40
That you could heal someone based on nature and science and
19:44
not necessarily based on Christianity.
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That was a threat to Christianity.
19:48
So these were the people that were accused and these were the
19:50
people that were killed. Women were viewed as literally
19:53
gateways to the devil. They were less strong willed as
19:56
men or they were viewed as was less strong willed as men.
19:59
So they were able to be manipulated by the devil.
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They were viewed as objects to be controlled.
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And a lot of times in Christianity, like I grew up
20:08
Catholic, these are common themes, right?
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That women are simultaneously dumb and easily manipulated,
20:16
right? And potentially dangerous due to
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their duty being set sex objects and to reproduce.
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So it's this Catch 22. We're objects to be controlled.
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We're a threat to patriarchy, patriarchy if we're not
20:30
controlled by the right moral codes.
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Women were not viewed as having critical thinking or a choice to
20:36
choose their own paths. So it's not like, oh, these
20:38
women are choosing to go down the wrong path.
20:41
It was that look at these sad little sexual creatures that are
20:45
being possessed by the devil. That's what's even crazier.
20:49
And there was also this idea of this like hyper sexuality and
20:55
women viewed as inherently sexual.
20:58
And so if women are not controlled and and have their
21:03
sexuality put into good use, like reproduction, then this out
21:09
of control sexuality because that was all women were right is
21:16
sex objects and reproductive objects, if not used in the
21:22
family way is used by the devil in these sex orgies.
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These ideas of women flying off, which is flying off to have
21:32
these orgies with Satan was like a huge fear mongering story told
21:37
to people. And apparently the root of it
21:40
comes from like pig Pagan sex orgies.
21:45
And a lot of theories come down to like, OK, these were just
21:50
women living together and this idea that they were having sex,
21:53
not with men, right? Lesbians and obviously not
21:59
Satan. Satan was not there.
22:01
There is evidence of lesbians being accused of witchcraft
22:05
early on. Maude Galt was a lesbian accused
22:09
in I'm, I believe, oh, 17th century Scotland.
22:13
She married a man named John Dickey to hide her lesbianism
22:17
and had a potentially abusive relationship with one of her
22:20
servants. Her charges were apparently
22:23
pages long and people were so shocked by the story that she
22:28
had this relationship with a woman that of course accused of
22:31
witchcraft. Also it's important to note that
22:33
like, feminism was as viewed as bad as lesbianism in the eyes of
22:38
the Puritans in the western world.
22:40
Being anti men was like the worst thing you could ever be in
22:43
society. It was literally worse than like
22:47
scum of the earth. OK.
22:49
Also, I was just, I was doing some reading too.
22:53
And apparently in Europe there were these stories about this
22:56
kind of goes to like the connection of like lesbians and
22:59
witches, right? There were these stories of
23:02
witches and women in covens that were, quote, growing penises on
23:06
trees so they don't need men. And obviously this is impossible
23:12
and didn't happen. But like, again, it's this fear
23:18
that, like, women could almost create a society in which men
23:23
were not needed and that they did not need.
23:26
They could grow penises on trees.
23:28
So they didn't need men and they had sexuality without men,
23:32
right? So this is obviously like tying
23:35
back to like the threat of lesbianism.
23:37
Women living together is lesbian, point blank, period.
23:42
Let's talk about the lasting effects of the demonization of
23:45
witches and the witch trials. So I think we all know that
23:51
like, witch is a bad word now it's used as a as a very like
23:56
negative thing usually. But like as a society, we accept
24:00
that the witch hunts were unfair.
24:02
We know this. Yet we still demonize women
24:06
based on these tropes and stereotypes.
24:08
Why? Why is this still so common and
24:11
like normal male politicians like Donald Trump and
24:16
specifically male politicians? Isn't it interesting?
24:19
Hillary Clinton is never like this as a witch hunt.
24:21
Donald Trump will be like this as a witch hunt and use our
24:25
language, reverse it. Yet we are still being judged
24:30
and persecuted based on the stereotypes of witches.
24:35
So that's interesting. Here are the witch stereotypes,
24:38
right? I think we're all kind of aware
24:40
of these things. Witches are ugly.
24:43
Witches are green. There's a racial element, right?
24:45
They're not like white. It's like fear that they're like
24:48
not. They're not pure and pretty and
24:53
white and Eurocentric, right? They have big noses.
24:57
This is also racial. They have warts.
25:00
They have brooms. And the broom thing I think
25:03
comes from like Pagan rituals. Anyways, they cackle.
25:08
They're not sweet and like charming.
25:11
They take children for themselves.
25:14
This idea spawns from witches being unmarried and without
25:16
kids. Because a lot of the women
25:18
accused were like women that didn't have kids and were older
25:21
women in society. This comes back to the lesbian
25:23
stereotypes, right? Of like not having any
25:26
connection to kids, not being able to reproduce kids on your
25:29
own. This like absence of a
25:31
biological tie to kids is a huge, huge aspect of the
25:36
persecution of lesbians and witches.
25:38
So all the things here are lesbophobia, misogyny, ageism,
25:41
racism. Right here are the witch and
25:44
lesbian shared stereotypes. There's so, so much shared
25:50
culture here between them. Cats.
25:55
I have to say nothing else here. Magic astrology, the astrology
26:01
gay, the astrology femme. I've seen, we've all seen videos
26:06
of like men on the Internet, boys on the Internet where it's
26:10
like when you walk into that one astrology girl's room and you
26:13
see all the astrology stuff and crystals and then you like,
26:16
you're like, oh God, I got to turn away.
26:18
So scary. That's coming from this
26:22
demonization of witches and spirituality, right?
26:25
And I've also seen some of this come from like inside the quarry
26:28
community as well. This like demonization of femmes
26:32
and being like, Oh my God, like these crystal femmes and all
26:36
their crystals and their astrology.
26:38
And not that you have to be a femme to be like into astrology,
26:41
but like this is a shared aspect of like witchcraft and lesbians,
26:48
this trope that like you're crazy and like wild and like
26:53
insane and not rooted in reality if you're like into astrology
26:56
and crystals, right? This is a shared theme between
27:00
lesbians and witches. Another shared point of culture
27:03
is like decentering men just removing men out of society,
27:08
being anti the traditional family, rejecting traditional
27:13
femininity, right? A lot of witches were accused of
27:17
being witches because they didn't, like, look like this
27:19
perfect, perfect young feminine girl, right?
27:24
And that's a lot of the reason why lesbians are viewed as
27:27
outcasts of society. Butchers are.
27:30
And masks are viewed as not being real women and being a
27:34
threat to society because they can mimic men and they're not
27:40
the way women are supposed to be, right?
27:42
So there's another shared, shared aspect of which isn't
27:46
lesbians and also embracing being an outcast.
27:49
I think that's really important to note.
27:50
Like I don't identify as a lesbian.
27:54
Like I will never date a man again.
27:58
I'm very much sapphic, technically bisexual.
28:01
I wouldn't be surprised if like all of a sudden I wake up
28:04
tomorrow and I'm like, Oh my God, I was never attracted to to
28:07
men. I'm a lesbian.
28:08
So like as a community and as sapphics, I think it's important
28:14
to like re embrace being outcasts and not trying to get
28:18
male validation. So this is like a similar thing
28:21
between lesbians and witches, right?
28:26
Both of these communities are not trying to be like get
28:30
validation from men, right? The validation is from nature,
28:34
other women, spirituality, all these other things.
28:38
OK. These other like shared tropes
28:42
between like lesbians and witches are really showed in
28:46
like Disney movies and like single women villains, right?
28:50
Like Ursula, is this like stereotypically ugly?
28:54
I put quotes on that like Butch scary sorceress woman, right?
29:01
Who's like a witch who's very lesbian?
29:06
Hocus pocus witches, right, are stealing children and they're
29:10
seducing men. Wicked Witch of the West.
29:14
We've already established all of that is gay.
29:20
But what is interesting in society and pop culture right
29:23
now is that like amongst all of these stereotypes, these
29:27
negative stereotypes shared between lesbians and witches and
29:32
all of these things being ugly and anti men and seducing, it's
29:35
like hypersexual but also not feminine enough and all these
29:38
things, right? But male witches are OK.
29:42
Wizards are completely cool and awesome.
29:45
Wizards of Waverly Place, Harry Potter.
29:48
If you're a man and you're into magic, totally a OK, but if
29:53
you're a woman and into magic, you are the gateway to the
29:57
devil. Society teaches us if you're a
30:00
man, you can do whatever you want.
30:01
If you're a woman, you can't grow old without a man.
30:04
Don't be curious, don't embrace your sexuality, don't live
30:07
outside your family unit, don't do anything to make anyone doubt
30:11
you're not a feminine godly girl.
30:13
This all ties back to being a lesbian and this specific
30:18
experience that lesbians face where that are not put on
30:22
necessarily men or even gay men. Patriarchal society requires the
30:27
subordination of of like the feminine energy and of women.
30:32
And so when women reject that, it's a threat to the entire
30:36
system. When lesbians go outside of what
30:39
is expected from women and decenter men completely in their
30:43
lives, that is the biggest threat to society and that still
30:46
carries on today and in pop culture too, right?
30:49
Like it is important to note that lesbians are received less
30:55
well than bisexual women. As a bisexual woman, I know if I
31:00
was dating a man, that is not necessarily a threat to the
31:04
system because it's like, oh OK, you like kiss women whatever,
31:07
but like you'll be with a man, right?
31:10
So if you are focusing on women and you are not even partaking
31:14
in the patriarchal aspect of it's like straight relationships
31:19
and how a woman should be, that is the biggest threat to
31:21
society. Obviously not all bisexuals are
31:24
like passing like doesn't mean you're not queer, but it's about
31:27
what is viewed to be the biggest threat to society from the
31:32
patriarchal aspect. OK, let's talk about reclaiming
31:37
the word which the term which all the tropes of witches as a
31:41
means of feminism and lesbian liberation, embracing and
31:45
reclaiming slurs, dyke, queer witch, all of these words
31:52
horrible negative stereotypes, but it's important to reclaim it
31:58
for our culture and also for the point of like reversing these
32:03
stereotypes and not letting it being used against us.
32:07
Nicole Pasulka wrote for the Cut She Goes when women were first
32:12
organizing in the 1960s and 1970s.
32:14
Lesbians often look to female dominated or goddess worshipping
32:19
cultures as models for how to live and thrive outside
32:22
patriarchal Western society. So it really makes sense why
32:27
embracing Wicca or witch culture and these types of like
32:32
religious beliefs and like this connection with nature and
32:34
astrology and decentering men is a way to liberate us as women,
32:41
to not even focus on men and to focus on societies and cultures
32:45
where women are the important ones.
32:48
Women are the thought leaders where we embrace these negative
32:52
stereotypes and reverse it instead of playing by the rules
32:56
of Western patriarchal society. I also wanted to talk about like
33:00
current pop culture, ways that artists have reclaimed which
33:05
lesbian stereotypes and there's so many more here.
33:11
I just wanted to talk about the ones that came to my mind.
33:14
I do have to note though, when I looked started looking up like
33:17
pop culture references, a lot of these were men and a lot of
33:22
these been like Maroon 5 and The Rolling Stones.
33:24
They all have like these songs about like burning witches.
33:27
And it's like kind of fucked up. I'm like, you guys can't write
33:30
that, OK. Stevie Nicks people called her a
33:34
white witch because of her Mystic nature and like Rhiannon
33:37
and all of her songs witch Taylor Swift and I did something
33:43
bad. She says quote they're burning
33:45
all the witches. Even if you aren't 1.
33:47
So light me up. It's being like I'm not even
33:50
telling you if I'm a witch or not.
33:51
You can light me up because I'm OK with being associated with
33:56
being this like evil witch love she in Willow her performance
34:02
and music video is like the witches thing ever.
34:04
She's like has these like balls and she's like scenes scene is
34:09
like evil almost. I love that and obviously
34:12
witches are not inherently evil, but it's not trying to shy away
34:16
from these stereotypes. It's bringing power to the
34:19
stereotypes of lesbian lesbians and witches as being like evil
34:23
and scary and anti mad. It's like, oh, you want us to be
34:27
scary and anti men? We can do that, right?
34:31
We're not trying to prove it wrong.
34:33
It's about giving power to witches and lesbians and
34:36
reclaiming what that means by embracing the Mystic nature of
34:43
witches and the anti menace and the all of these other things by
34:49
embracing the stereotypes of witches.
34:51
It's not to say Oh yeah, witches are devil worshippers.
34:55
It's to say oh there's a lot of these things that are not
34:57
necessarily negative that were just told to us are negative
35:01
right. I love madwoman by Taylor Swift
35:05
quotes Women like hunting witches too during your doing
35:09
your dirtiest work for you. And it shows how like just
35:14
because you're a woman doesn't mean you're immune from being
35:17
sexist and like lesbophobic, right?
35:20
Because patriarchal society relies on women to buy into the
35:23
system as well and for straight women to target lesbians as
35:28
well, right? That's what it relies upon.
35:32
It relies on other women to be like you're a witch.
35:36
It needs that, it fosters that, and there's no way we're going
35:39
to, like, have liberation unless we have straight women support
35:44
us, too. The prophecy gathered around a
35:48
coven gathered with a coven around a sorcerer's table.
35:52
I love that she's, like, talks so much about witches.
35:55
She's never been in the witch allegations.
35:57
It's impossible for her to escape now.
36:00
She's straight up like, yeah, I have a coven and I'm trying to
36:03
predict the future. I love it.
36:06
I absolutely love it. Like I love it.
36:09
There's nothing even more to say, Peter, she says.
36:11
The goddess of timing, all of these things are pointing to
36:15
like reclamation of like these spiritual Mystic connections,
36:21
spirituality that's not tied to Christianity, that's tied to
36:25
goddesses and covens and witches.
36:29
And that that's a powerful way to live your life too.
36:33
And that's a very fine, moral, amazing way to live your life.
36:36
Like your life does not have to be tied to Christianity, right?
36:39
It can be tied to goddesses and it can be tied to nature and
36:43
spirituality in other ways. Halsey also has a song called
36:48
Lilith, which is about like an ancient supposed witch Lilith.
36:53
I didn't really do much other research into that.
36:56
Do with that what you will. OK?
36:57
The movements in feminism and lesbianism and like the roots of
37:01
what it is to be a feminist and to be lesbian are pretty much
37:06
undoing which stereotypes innately.
37:08
Inherently the movements are decentering men, decentering
37:12
white Christian western patriarchal society, right?
37:16
Embracing natural medicine, spirituality, nature, and
37:19
astrology and not applying negative twisted stereotypes to
37:24
that. Embracing and learning about
37:26
femininity. Focusing on female connection
37:29
covens, female and lesbian spaces, and not tying those
37:33
spaces and that connection to men, right?
37:36
Centering women in those spaces as thought leaders, as wise
37:39
women. Expanding what it even means to
37:42
be a woman. Expanding the gender binary,
37:45
right? Feminism should not just be
37:46
about like white femme women, right?
37:49
So like, what does it mean to be woman?
37:51
What does it even mean to be feminist?
37:53
This goes beyond CIS women, right?
37:55
And femininity does not equal women and masculinity does not
37:58
equal men. These movements and like a lot
38:01
of how we're like moving forward for liberation is inherently
38:07
undoing this persecution of witches inherently because the
38:13
culture and history of witches and lesbians is literally so
38:17
strongly tied. And even though we don't have
38:20
like data on witches being lesbians, because a lot of the
38:24
times, of course they didn't want to say they're lesbians,
38:27
they would be fucking killed. Let's remember that doesn't mean
38:31
that there's not this actual shared history between these two
38:37
communities. We also need to undo the
38:39
demonization of witchcraft and Wicca as religion itself.
38:42
We need a whole upheaval of the moral centering of western
38:45
patriarchal religions and Christianity, right?
38:48
So it's not evil or devil worshipping to be like focusing
38:51
on astrology. It's not vapid or stupid or
38:54
feminine or or less worthy, right?
38:58
Why is astrology and focusing on your cycle and the moon and all
39:04
of these other practices? Why is that viewed as less valid
39:09
than a God in the sky? Like why?
39:12
It's because men created one religion and women created the
39:14
other. The feminist, queer, and lesbian
39:17
movements all have a part of this, of course as well.
39:20
And even though like, I'm not deeply familiar with Wicca,
39:24
I'll, I said it once, I'll say it again.
39:25
Please let me join your coven. I would love to convert.
39:28
I really want to know anything I can.
39:30
And if you're part of a coven, please let me know.
39:34
Please. OK to close.
39:36
Lesbians and witches have a shared culture and history.
39:39
Have we? As we've demonstrated, the
39:41
demonization of witches is tied to the demonization of lesbians.
39:44
Fact. The devil is pretty much told to
39:49
us in society as women and sexuality, right?
39:53
Like society views women as the devil, and if sexuality runs
39:58
rampant, the devil wins. And that's why society hates
40:02
lesbians. Next time you see a portrayal of
40:05
an ugly scary witch, an ugly scary kid eating witch, think
40:11
about the history of why they're even portrayed that way.
40:15
And this idea that like lesbians don't have their own kids.
40:18
And if you don't have your own biological kids, you're evil and
40:21
they're trying to eat and steal children.
40:22
Like it's so crazy. And like, I love Halloween
40:28
movies, but every time I see like an like a witch portray
40:31
this way, I'm like, that's just a lesbian.
40:35
And final point is, please let me enter your coven.
40:38
So thank you guys so much for joining me.
40:41
I hope you learned something. I learned so much.
40:44
I feel like I just lost my voice from like spewing off all that
40:47
information. Next week, we're going to be
40:49
talking about celebrities and their political endorsements.
40:53
And if it even means anything, we're going to talk about Taylor
40:55
Swift. We're going to talk about
40:56
Chaparron. We're going to talk about all
40:58
the controversies of political endorsements because of course,
41:01
the election is coming up. And if you're a lesbian and if
41:04
you're a witch, please vote under to subscribe.
41:07
I know a lot of you listen and don't subscribe, which is
41:09
totally OK not to call you out. But if you do listen, please
41:14
subscribe and follow me. It's totally OK that you haven't
41:18
already, but please do soon. Really does make a difference.
41:22
Yeah. Have a great week.
41:23
Lesbians and witches. Oh, what else?
41:25
I was going to say. I have found out recently that
41:28
some people from my life, perhaps high school, perhaps
41:33
friends that I haven't seen in 10 years, right distant family
41:38
members have been listening to my podcast.
41:40
Please, if you are one of these people, let me know.
41:43
I'm literally so curious about who's listening.
41:47
And I didn't think this was reaching anyone that wasn't like
41:51
a gaylor. So would love to know if you
41:54
guys are listening. And so let me know if you're
41:56
listening. And you're like, oh, that's me.
41:58
I haven't talked to Haley in 20 years, but I'm listening to her
42:01
podcast. I would love to know.
42:03
I'm genuinely so curious. OK, love you guys.
42:05
I'm going to take a bus and go see my girlfriend.
42:09
Bye. See you next week.