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appalachiablue

(41,052 posts)
Tue May 17, 2022, 07:21 PM May 2022

Prejudices That Led to Witch- Hunts Still Affect Women Today, Says Historian



- Historian Lucy Worsley.
_____

- The Guardian, May 17, 2022.

- Lucy Worsley, whose BBC TV series focuses on powerless people, says women continue to bear brunt of men’s rage. -

Prejudices that led to witch-hunts hundreds of years ago have not disappeared and women are still on the receiving end of men’s anger, a leading historian has said. Writing in the Radio Times, Lucy Worsley, a historian and author, said: “[Although] we like to think we’re better than the people who hunted witches, witch-hunting still happens in some parts of the world today.”

The prejudices that led to witch-hunts in the 16th and 17th centuries continue to exist and women, especially outspoken ones, were still targeted by men, she said. She said: “The prejudices that led to witch-hunts haven’t completely disappeared. It’s still the case that women – especially odd-seeming, mouthy ones – often feel the anger of the men whose hackles they raise.

“Today, ever so many people, but perhaps women in particular, feel a sense of kinship with our ancestors who were persecuted in this way. Anyone who has ever been put down as a ‘difficult’ woman hears a distant echo of the past.” The historian’s four-part series, Lucy Worsley Investigates, takes a closer look at the experiences of people who “lacked power in the past”, with one such example being Agnes Sampson, a Scottish woman who was accused of being a witch and burned at the stake in 1591.

On International Women’s Day in March, the first minister of Scotland issued an apology to the 4,000 people in the country, the vast majority being women, who were convicted and often executed under the Witchcraft Act of 1563. “Those who met this fate were not witches, they were people, and they were overwhelmingly women,” Nicola Sturgeon said. “At a time when women were not even allowed to speak as witnesses in a courtroom, they were accused and killed because they were poor, different, vulnerable or in many cases just because they were women.” According to Worsley, Sampson was only one of the many women accused of witchcraft in 16th- and 17th-century Scotland, and “represents ever so many more”...
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/may/17/women-men-witch-hunts-lucy-worsley-tv-series

- Lucy Worsley https://lucyworsley.com/
_________

- Witch Trials in the Early Modern Period, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_trials_in_the_early_modern_period#:~:text=Prosecutions%20for%20the%20crime%20of,over%20the%20age%20of%2040.

- The Little-Known Story of 16th- to 18th-Century Nordic Witch Trials, Smithsonian Magazine, 2020,
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-exhibition-rewrites-story-nordic-witch-trials-180976205/#:~:text=Though%20the%20practice%20of%20witchcraft,and%20their%20accomplices%E2%80%9D%20in%201617.



- The burning of a witch in Vienna, Austria in 1538.
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Prejudices That Led to Witch- Hunts Still Affect Women Today, Says Historian (Original Post) appalachiablue May 2022 OP
I believe this to be true. I have watched several of Lucy Worsley's documentaries and... wcmagumba May 2022 #1
I like her and have seen a few of her programs, appalachiablue May 2022 #2
Kickin' Faux pas May 2022 #3
India's Widows, Abused at Home, Have Sought Refuge in This Holy City for Centuries appalachiablue May 2022 #4
NYT article on widows abandoned by their families in India. Also Al Jazeera: appalachiablue May 2022 #15
and the WAR ON WOMEN continues apace. Would you consider cross-posting this in niyad May 2022 #5
All set, good suggestion. appalachiablue May 2022 #7
And I will keep posting this from these Canadians that never took their finger off the button Cheezoholic May 2022 #6
I found out that a relative was tried as a witch BigmanPigman May 2022 #8
No kidding wow, and righto about special gifts appalachiablue May 2022 #9
This was interesting too. BigmanPigman May 2022 #10
I like it! Whatever appalachiablue May 2022 #11
"And the Earth is a Witch, and the men still burn Her. Stripping Her down with niyad May 2022 #12
great lyrics pfitz59 May 2022 #13
very sad indeed. niyad May 2022 #14

wcmagumba

(2,871 posts)
1. I believe this to be true. I have watched several of Lucy Worsley's documentaries and...
Tue May 17, 2022, 07:37 PM
May 2022

they have all been excellent...

appalachiablue

(41,052 posts)
2. I like her and have seen a few of her programs,
Tue May 17, 2022, 07:42 PM
May 2022

mostly on the royals, culture and history in the 16th, 17th centuries and collections.

appalachiablue

(41,052 posts)
4. India's Widows, Abused at Home, Have Sought Refuge in This Holy City for Centuries
Tue May 17, 2022, 08:33 PM
May 2022

- NYT, Aug. 27, 2019.

Hindu brides are often expected to live with their husbands’ families. This weakens ties with their own, and widowhood can spell disaster. Without a husband, a small portion of India’s approximately 40 million widows are violently purged from their homes each year. But many of India’s castaway widows — most of them illiterate, some married off as infants — have seen significant improvements in their quality of life over the last few years.

Prodded by a flurry of public petitions and court rulings, the government and rights groups have invested tens of millions of dollars into lifting the conditions of abandoned women. The money has gone not only into building group homes for widows, but also to funding pensions and providing work training and medical treatment.

While some of these changes are taking place across India, they are most visible in Vrindavan. The town is a maze of narrow streets and regal, sandstone temples. All day long, thousands of pilgrims gather to pray at the base of giant statues of deities. It is believed that widows have gathered in the city since Chaitanya Mahaprabhu, a 16th-century Bengali social reformer, brought a group of them there to escape from suttee, a now-banned practice in which Hindu widows immolated themselves on their husbands’ funeral pyres.

For many years, the widows in Vrindavan, which is considered the childhood home of the Hindu god Krishna, have survived by singing devotional songs in temples for a few rupees a day, and by begging for money in white saris, a signifier that color had drained from their lives. Homelessness was common among Vrindavan’s widows. Some lived in doorways. When they died, garbage collectors would sometimes stuff their bodies into jute bags and throw them into the Yamuna River, according to local media reports.

While widows often felt they had no place else to go, the trip to Vrindavan was dreaded...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/world/asia/india-women-widows.html

appalachiablue

(41,052 posts)
15. NYT article on widows abandoned by their families in India. Also Al Jazeera:
Thu May 19, 2022, 12:16 AM
May 2022

- NOTE: *TV Program, 'Lucy Worsley Investigates: The Witch-Hunts' on BBC Two, Tues., 24 May, 9pm. (The Guardian).



.. NYT. The widows’ conditions became so dire that India’s Supreme Court took notice of their plight in 2012, ruling that the government must provide them food, medical care and a sanitary place to live. Since then, a number of govt. projects have been introduced, including building Krishna Kutir- Krishna’s House, which cost $8M and opened last August.
Many of the 129 widows living there arrived alone, by train, from villages hundreds of miles away, with dirty, torn clothing, and some came with serious injuries.

At the ashram’s inauguration, Maneka Gandhi, India’s minister for women at the time, said there was still far to go in improving widows’ treatment, but that she hoped Krishna Kutir’s model could be replicated elsewhere in India. “We want all women to feel safe,” she said. Vinita Verma, a social worker from Sulabh Internatl., an organization that works with widows, said she had seen a slow erosion of the conditioning that taught the women — who number at least 3,000 in Vrindavan — to view themselves as unworthy of love. Widows who once refused to wear color are opting for garments dyed blue, burnt orange & pink. “They used to think only in white, nothing else,”

Kali Dasi, a frail woman around 75, said that last year, she tried to reconcile with her family in West Bengal, leaving Vrindavan to journey to her village. When she got there, relatives drained her life savings, about $230. Someone bought her a train ticket back to Vrindavan after seeing her begging on the street. “I want to go again,” Ms. Dasi said...

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/27/world/asia/india-women-widows.html
_______



'My children abandoned me after the death of my husband,' 67-yr-old Subudra Dasi said. 'I walked, hitched rides from truck drivers, slept on roads, & finally reached Vrindavan. These widows are my family, & here I lead a life of dignity.'
_______

- 'Widows in India: My children threw me out of the house,' Aljazeera, March 7, 2016. - Many communities in India still shun widows and they are abandoned by their families due to superstition. -

Vrindavan, India – Self-immolation, sati, on a husband’s pyre may have been banned in India, but life for many widows in India is still disheartening as they are shunned by their communities and abandoned by their families. “I used to wash dishes and clothes in people’s house to earn money, but the moment they heard that I am a widow, I was thrown out without any notice,” said 85-year-old Manu Ghosh, living in Vrindavan, a city in the No. Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Vrindavan is home to more than 20,000 widows, and over the years, many shelters for widows run by the government, private enterprises and NGOs have mushroomed in the city. The city, which is considered holy by Hindus, has become known as the ‘City of Widows’. “I had to sleep on the street as even my family abandoned me after my husband’s death. I was married off to him when I was 11 years old and he was 40. My daughter died of malnutrition as I could not give her food since nobody wanted to help a widow. After her death, I decided to come to Vrindavan. A woman should die before her husband’s death so that she doesn’t have to live through hell like this,” Gosh says.

The women often live in acute poverty and are ostracised by society due to various superstitions – even the shadow of a widow can wreak havoc and bring bad luck, people believe. Lack of education and any source of income forces them to beg on streets and many turn to prostitution for survival. “My children threw me out of the house after my husband died,” says Manuka Dasi. “I try to earn money by singing devotional songs in temple and manage to get one meal for the day. I am just waiting to die so that I can be out of this life of misery.” 'My children abandoned me after the death of my husband,' 67-year-old Subudra Dasi said. 'I walked, hitched rides from truck drivers, slept on roads, and finally reached Vrindavan. These widows are my family, and here I lead a life of dignity.'

Maya Rani, 80, says: 'I have no one in this world. I am all alone. Being a widow is the biggest curse for a woman. Throughout my life, I have longed for respect and some dignity.' Forced to leave their homes, these widows find solace in each other's company. They share rooms in the shelter and try to live like a family. The shelters are cramped with dingy rooms and become these women's homes for life. Rada Dasi, 82, said, 'It's a lifelong sentence of humiliation and struggle. I have been in this temple for more than 60 years, and now I don't remember anything about my home-town. I wait for death every day so that I get some relief.' 'I went to my parent's house after I was widowed, but even my parents had turned into monsters,'...
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2016/3/7/widows-in-india-my-children-threw-me-out-of-the-house

niyad

(112,434 posts)
5. and the WAR ON WOMEN continues apace. Would you consider cross-posting this in
Tue May 17, 2022, 11:28 PM
May 2022

Women's Rights And Issues? Thanks in advance.

One need look no further than today's qcp and their insane attacks on women.

BigmanPigman

(51,430 posts)
8. I found out that a relative was tried as a witch
Wed May 18, 2022, 02:22 AM
May 2022

in Philadelphia in the late 1600s. My mother did our genealogy stuff and this was discovered. I wish I had special powers so I could make certain Republicans disappear for good.

https://www.quakersintheworld.org/ideas-for-educators/694

https://www.sacred-texts.com/ame/row/row06.htm

niyad

(112,434 posts)
12. "And the Earth is a Witch, and the men still burn Her. Stripping Her down with
Wed May 18, 2022, 09:58 AM
May 2022

Last edited Wed May 18, 2022, 01:07 PM - Edit history (1)

mining and the poisons of their wars." Charlie Murphy, "Burning Times".

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