
In Defense of Witches
The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial
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Narrated by:
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Carmen Maria Machado
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Alix Dunmore
About this listen
Mona Chollet's In Defense of Witches is a “brilliant, well-documented” celebration (Le Monde) by an acclaimed French feminist of the witch as a symbol of female rebellion and independence in the face of misogyny and persecution.
Centuries after the infamous witch hunts that swept through Europe and America, witches continue to hold a unique fascination for many: as fairy tale villains, practitioners of pagan religion, as well as feminist icons. Witches are both the ultimate victim and the stubborn, elusive rebel. But who were the women who were accused and often killed for witchcraft? What types of women have centuries of terror censored, eliminated, and repressed?
Celebrated feminist writer Mona Chollet explores three types of women who were accused of witchcraft and persecuted: the independent woman, since widows and celibates were particularly targeted; the childless woman, since the time of the hunts marked the end of tolerance for those who claimed to control their fertility; and the elderly woman, who has always been an object of at best, pity, and at worst, horror. Examining modern society, Chollet concludes that these women continue to be harassed and oppressed. Rather than being a brief moment in history, the persecution of witches is an example of society’s seemingly eternal misogyny, while women today are direct heirs to those who were hunted down and killed for their thoughts and actions.
With fiery prose and arguments that range from the scholarly to the cultural, In Defense of Witches seeks to unite the mythic image of the witch with modern women who seek to live their lives on their own terms.
©2022 Mona Chollet and Sophie R. Lewis (P)2022 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Featured Article: 25 of the Best Witchy Listens to Cast a Spell for Halloween
Spooky season is upon us, and it's the perfect time of the year to sink into some wonderful witchy listens—although to be honest, we don't need an excuse to enjoy great stories about the fascinating world of witches. Whether you're into fantastical fiction tales of magic, the more practical informational guides on how to practice witchcraft, or historical tales about the real lives of famous witches, we've rounded up some of the very best witch audiobooks.
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- How the Female Body Drove 200 Million Years of Human Evolution
- By: Cat Bohannon
- Narrated by: Cat Bohannon
- Length: 15 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Why do women live longer than men? Why do women have menopause? Why are women more likely to get Alzheimer’s? Why do girls score better at every academic subject than boys until puberty, when suddenly their scores plummet? And does the female brain really exist? In Eve, Cat Bohannon answers questions scientists should have been addressing for decades. With boundless curiosity and sharp wit, she covers the past 200 million years to explain the specific science behind the development of the female sex.
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Stronger on reproductive bio, flimsy on sexuality
- By curiouscolugo on 12-20-23
By: Cat Bohannon
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Women & Power
- A Manifesto
- By: Mary Beard
- Narrated by: Mary Beard
- Length: 1 hr and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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At long last, Mary Beard addresses in one brave book the misogynists and trolls who mercilessly attack and demean women the world over, including, very often, Mary herself. In Women & Power, she traces the origins of this misogyny to its ancient roots, examining the pitfalls of gender and the ways that history has mistreated strong women since time immemorial.
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Short and fabulous
- By André C. on 03-13-20
By: Mary Beard
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Entitled
- How Male Privilege Hurts Women
- By: Kate Manne
- Narrated by: Cynthia Farrell
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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In this bold and stylish critique, Cornell philosopher Kate Manne offers a radical new framework for understanding misogyny. Ranging widely across the culture, from Harvey Weinstein and the Brett Kavanaugh hearings to “Cat Person” and the political misfortunes of Elizabeth Warren, Manne’s book shows how privileged men’s sense of entitlement - to sex, yes, but more insidiously to admiration, care, bodily autonomy, knowledge, and power - is a pervasive social problem with often devastating consequences.
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New to the subject
- By Bruno on 08-20-20
By: Kate Manne
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Witchcraft
- A History in Thirteen Trials
- By: Marion Gibson
- Narrated by: Rose Akroyd
- Length: 11 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Offering a striking, dramatic journey unspooling over centuries and across continents, Witchcraft is a “well-rounded insight into some of the strangest and cruelest moments in history” (Buzz Magazine), giving voice to those who have been silenced by history.
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Clever and Current
- By Jolie E Bremner on 04-29-24
By: Marion Gibson
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The Witch
- A History of Fear, from Ancient Times to the Present
- By: Ronald Hutton
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
- Length: 16 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Why have societies all across the world feared witchcraft? This book delves deeply into its context, beliefs, and origins in Europe's history. The witch came to prominence - and often a painful death - in early modern Europe, yet her origins are much more geographically diverse and historically deep. In this landmark book, Ronald Hutton traces witchcraft from the ancient world to the early modern state.
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Meticulously researched, dry but great.
- By Matthew T Shank on 09-21-18
By: Ronald Hutton
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Witches, Witch-Hunting, and Women
- By: Silvia Federici
- Narrated by: J. Lee Craig
- Length: 2 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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We are witnessing a new surge of interpersonal and institutional violence against women, including new witch hunts. This surge of violence has occurred alongside an expansion of capitalist social relations. In this new work that revisits some of the main themes of Caliban and the Witch, Silvia Federici examines the root causes of these developments and outlines the consequences for the women affected and their communities.
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We want Caliban!
- By Ac on 09-17-21
By: Silvia Federici
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Waking the Witch
- Reflections on Women, Magic, and Power
- By: Pam Grossman
- Narrated by: Pam Grossman
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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A whip-smart and illuminating exploration of the world’s fascination with witches from podcast host and practicing witch Pam Grossman (The Witch Wave), who delves deeply into why witches have intrigued us for centuries and why they’re more relevant now than ever.
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Super!
- By Rocio on 07-12-19
By: Pam Grossman
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All in Her Head
- The Truth and Lies Early Medicine Taught Us About Women’s Bodies and Why It Matters Today
- By: Elizabeth Comen
- Narrated by: Anna Caputo
- Length: 13 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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For as long as medicine has been a practice, women's bodies have been treated like objects to be practiced on: examined and ignored, idealized and sexualized, shamed, subjugated, mutilated, and dismissed. The history of women’s healthcare is a story in which women themselves have too often been voiceless—a narrative instead written from the perspective of men who styled themselves as authorities on the female of the species, yet uninformed by women’s own voices, thoughts, fears, pain and experiences.
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Historical and hopeful
- By Meghan Hurley on 10-26-24
By: Elizabeth Comen
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Data Feminism
- By: Catherine D'Ignazio, Lauren F. Klein
- Narrated by: Teri Schnaubelt
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Illustrating data feminism in action, D'Ignazio and Klein show how challenges to the male/female binary can help challenge other hierarchical (and empirically wrong) classification systems. They explain how, for example, an understanding of emotion can expand our ideas about effective data visualization, and how the concept of invisible labor can expose the significant human efforts required by our automated systems. And they show why the data never, ever "speak for themselves."
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a long pamphlet, zero value
- By Amazon Customer on 07-28-22
By: Catherine D'Ignazio, and others
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Reinventing Love
- How the Patriarchy Sabotages Heterosexual Relations
- By: Mona Chollet, Susan Emanuel - translator
- Narrated by: Alix Dunmore
- Length: 7 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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A new work by the author of “In Defense of Witches” that seeks to redefine heterosexual relationships and give women back their voice.
By: Mona Chollet, and others
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The Feminist Killjoy Handbook
- The Radical Potential of Getting in the Way
- By: Sara Ahmed
- Narrated by: Sara Ahmed
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Do you refuse to laugh at offensive jokes? Have you ever been accused of ruining dinner by pointing out your companion’s sexist comment? Are you often told to stop being so “woke”? If so, you might be a feminist killjoy—and this handbook is for you. In this book, feminist theorist Sara Ahmed shows how killing joy can be a radical world-making project. Presenting sharp analysis of literature, film, and influential feminist works, and drawing on her own experiences as a queer feminist scholar-activist of color, Ahmed reveals the invaluable lessons of the feminist killjoy.
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Killing joy for a better tomorrow
- By marceleen mosher on 03-22-24
By: Sara Ahmed
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The Patriarchs
- The Origins of Inequality
- By: Angela Saini
- Narrated by: Sohm Kapila
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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For fans of Sapiens and The Dawn of Everything, a groundbreaking exploration of gendered oppression—its origins, its histories, our attempts to understand it, and our efforts to combat it.
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Patriarchys over time and space
- By Lynda Dickson on 12-22-23
By: Angela Saini
What listeners say about In Defense of Witches
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- Brenda N.
- 01-13-25
Powerful Look into the History of Women's Oppression
Our creativity, freedom, safety, intelligence, instincts, and basic humanity has been undermined for centuries. It leaves one to wonder, if men are natural leaders and providers, who possess greater strength and intelligence, why the need for a concentrated and targeted effort to bind women?
It feels much more like jealousy and fear based actions. You're not truly the best if you must silence others in order to gain power.
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- Anonymous User
- 01-30-24
So much to unpack in the history of women
Enjoyed learning all the underlying reasons for something we learn as if it was almost part of a fairy tale and not the consistent oppression women have endured for centuries. A book to keep for consultation and take notes.
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- Stephanie D. Schoellman
- 12-20-23
Relevant and Revelationary
Chollet traces the influence of the ideologies that enabled the witch-hunts and Burning Times across disciplines and through the centuries up to today. She manages to make the academic scholarship accessible and engaging, not to mention enraging.
While many gems of knowledge were divined throughout her exploration of how medical practices, law, gender dynamics, and environmental studies, to name a few, were affected by the distrust and persecution of the feminine—my favorite overall takeaway, that unsettled me in the best of ways, was this (slightly paraphrased):
“We are all products of the world that hunted the witches, and we remain locked inside the frame of reference that the witch hunts created.”
I call this work revelationary because its revelations could be the seeds of desperately needed revolutions in our thoughts and actions, individually and as a society. We must question where our interpretation of stories and events and traditions hails in order to move forward in wisdom and truth.
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- Ashleigh
- 05-02-24
Fabulous listen.
A must read for everyone navigating the pit falls of the repressed sexism in the modern world. Harrowing expose of sexism and oppression in medicine in particular.
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- SurfSraph17
- 10-27-22
Interesting read
Very interesting account of the history of the witch hunts and the impact it has had on women even to this day.
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- K. TAYLOR
- 11-19-24
Powerful!!
One of my favorite audible books to date!! So profoundly moving in is discussing how the witch hunts were ways of controlling the strong, intelligent, women of the time.
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- AMD
- 11-04-23
Good.
Really good book - but difficult as an audiobook. I wanted to make notes and reference other writings which is difficult if you listen while driving, etc.
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- Chelsea Bednar
- 09-07-22
An important and fundamental read
Just the book we’ve needed in 2022. Artfully and concisely summarizing all that attributes to being a woman in total control of herself, aka w.i.t.c.h.
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- Bethany
- 11-18-23
Excellent book
This should be required reading in school! I loved it and will reread it over and over!
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- Danica
- 12-10-24
Intriguing
3.5 I wasn't sure what to expect when reading this other than a feminist essay/manifesto-type book. It was certainly that. Well written, intriguing, but not my favorite in the genre.
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