Rehabilitating witches, misogyny, and a wizarding weekend

Yesterday we hung out for a while at Ithaca's "Wizarding Weekend." Downtown was transformed for the second year into Diagon Alley and Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. We had a fun time wandering around the stalls and exhibits, laughed with kids finding out which Hogwarts House they belonged to with a very convincing sorting hat, saw huge lines of folk getting personalized letters of admission to Hogwarts, and stared fondly at the Weasley's blue Ford Anglia—"we had one just like that when I was growing up," Jane commented. If was difficult to tell in the milling crowds, but I would say that more than half those dressed-up Halloween celebrants were female. Young, old, college students, moms and grandmas, with rarely a sad face to be found. These were wannabe witches who were proud of their witchcraft and proud of their gender. Truth be told, I've never seen so many witches. And that's a good thing.
For hundreds of years witches have been the pariah of our culture. Inevitably old, ugly, hook nosed and sinister, witches have received all the hate of a too frequently paranoid society. Even C. S. Lewis fell into the stereotype in the Narnia series. True, his was a "white witch," but all the worse for her, because her "whiteness" was a foil. Like all the witches before her, she was evil to the core. Wizards or warlocks have not faired as badly as witches. Inevitably perceived as wise, thoughtful, and on the side of good, Tolkien epitomized the wizard as Gandalf the Grey. There are, of course, bad wizards but these have fallen from the heights where true wizards dwell. Wizards are really on the side of good. Not so witches.
During the witch hunts, trials and persecutions from the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries around 40,000-60,000 witches were tortured and killed. What did these witches have in common? Their gender. The vast majority of those tried, tortured, hanged, burned, or drowned for sorcery were women and girls.
Jack Holland, in his 2006 Misogyny: The World's Oldest Prejudice, makes a compelling case that the witch hunts were rooted in the fear and hatred of women—misogyny—found in ancient religious myths and strengthened through centuries of religious teaching. "Witch" becomes a trope for "Woman" when woman steps out of her assigned role in society. Male insecurity, at even the thought that women could be wise and powerful challengers to male hegemony, has produced centuries of mockery, cruelty and inhumanity toward women. (Chants of "Lock her up! "Lock her up! by crowds at recent political rallies would doubtless, in days gone by, have been "Burn her! Burn her!") Historical sources, so far as we have them, indicate that the charge of witchcraft was often couched in the language of being "in league with the devil," or having sexual relations with demons, or stealing penises from careless males. Looking back the charges would be a laughing matter, if they were not then taken so seriously with such dire consequences. What was the real reason for the witch hunts? Being an inconvenient woman, hence a witch.
Religion has for the most part legitimized misogyny, and historically played a central role in the persecution of witches (inconvenient women), and few of the world's religious traditions are free form misogyny. Jesus was, perhaps, an exemplar welcoming women as close disciples, and refusing the judgment of others that women should be excluded from his circle. Sometimes called the "first feminist" Jesus was happy to hang out with inconvenient women such as Mary Magdalene, who apparently had "seven demons" when she met Jesus—as good a candidate for a witch as anyone! Jesus saved a woman "caught in adultery" from the crowd baying for her blood with the words, "Neither do I condemn you."
Of all the ancient texts, perhaps the Daodejing is the most female affirming.

The spirit of the valley does not pass away.
Called the dark womb,
the gate of the dark womb,
called the root of Heaven and Earth.
(Chapter 6, Kyoto Lee Translation, in Asian and Feminist Philosophies in Dialogue, 2014) 

Mitchell has it:

The Tao is called the Great Mother:
empty yet inexhaustible,
it gives birth to infinite worlds.

No fear of witches or women here! Rather the Dao is the generative female, imaged in all the wonderful mystery of life-giver and nurturer.
But witches have been recently rehabilitated. J. K. Rowling has played a large part in this rehabilitation of witches, taking the witch trope from the Satan worshiping old hags to be feared and killed, to fearless and smart role models like Hogwarts student witch Hermione Granger. At the Ithaca wizarding weekend (perhaps "witching weekend" was still a stretch for the organizers) my bet is that most of those young girls, moms and grandmas, would love to be a Hermione Granger, or a Molly Weasely, or a Minerva McGonagall. Who wouldn't!
I'm glad that witches are being rehabilitated. It has been the removal of a stone in the wall of misogyny. The wall is still pretty big, but removing such a large corner stone is progress.
+Ab. Andy