At first glance, one might think that it is an eccentricity, or else a commemoration with little anchoring in the present time. This week, on International Women’s Day, the First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, issued a formal apology on behalf of the government to all those, the vast majority of whom are women, who were accused, convicted and executed for witchcraft under the Witchcraft Act, which was in effect from 1563 to 1736.
Nearly three hundred years after the repeal of the Witchcraft Act, Nicola Sturgeon therefore spoke in these terms before Parliament: “In a time when women could not even speak or testify in court, they were accused and judged because they were poor, different, vulnerable or, in many cases, simply because they were women. This is an injustice perpetrated on a colossal scale, driven in large part by misogyny in its most literal sense: hatred of women. »
Voices have long been raised in Scotland demanding that we recognize the unjust, horrifying nature of the fate reserved for the victims of the “witch hunts” which led, between the sixteenthand and the XVIIIand century, to the persecution of more than 4000 people (of which at least 2500 were executed), according to the association Witches of Scotland, which campaigns for a formal recognition of the atrocities perpetrated by the State under the Witchcraft Act.
The phenomenon is obviously not limited to Scotland, while witch hunts took place all over Europe as well as in the United States at the same time. On the other hand, it is pointed out that in Scotland, the State would have tracked down, condemned, tortured and executed up to five times more people than elsewhere in Europe, without this ignominy being inscribed as such in the collective memory. : no apology or memorial or any form of reparation.
Reproduction of violence
It is striking to note the extent to which Sturgeon’s gesture, however symbolic, draws a clear arc between the past and the present, shrinking time and throwing the reproduction of the same violence back in our faces. The misogyny in question here is of course still a glaring problem in our societies, ranging from ordinary little sexism to the most violent gestures. That said, it is the continuity in erasing and minimizing feminicide in particular that is troubling.
In A global war on women. From witch hunts to feminicide, a small book published in French by Éditions du remue-ménage in 2021, the writer and feminist theorist Silvia Federici precisely questions the lightness with which we today approach the witch hunts of past centuries. She evokes, for example, the tourist development of the places where the trials and executions of women convicted of witchcraft took place, or the numerous artistic productions, folk tales, which romanticize the persecution of “witches” without underlining the political dimension. .
Above all, explains Federici, it is surprising — or, on the contrary, perfectly coherent — that these episodes are never named for what they are, that is to say mass feminicides, born “at the crossroads of a set of social processes which paved the way for the advent of the modern capitalist world”. The erasure of witch hunts, of these mass feminicides, of memory (or else their light, apolitical treatment) masks the depth of the roots of misogyny within our societies. It also helps to justify the erasure of the violence that is still going on today.
At home too, at the beginning of March, the issue of violence against women was on the agenda. In addition to the fact that Quebec recorded in 2021 a number of feminicides unequaled since 2008, we learned in these pages that half of the men who killed their spouse last year had a history of domestic violence, whether sexual and armed assaults, forcible confinement or even death threats made against a spouse. The investigation carried out by The duty vividly demonstrates the shortcomings of the judicial system when it comes to preventing recidivism.
something escapes us
Despite the recommendations aimed at preventing domestic violence and better protecting survivors made in the report of the Committee of Experts on Support for Victims of Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence, and despite the promises conveyed by the possible use of strut bracelets, it seems something is missing. Something that may have to do with the historical trivialization of feminicides, whose structural dimension we prefer to ignore.
Of course, the justice system must adapt, in particular by ensuring closer monitoring of repeat offenders. We need to provide more resources to people who experience domestic violence. That said, there is also reason to wonder about the root causes of the minimization of violence against women, of which femicide is the most radical form. As things stand, it is no exaggeration to say that it is possible to draw a thread between the witch hunts of the past, the erasure of their memory, and the present laxity in terms of preventing violence based on genre.