By Maggie Baring.
In May 1693, one of the most famous witch trials in history came to an end, having caused the executions of 14 women and girls, as well as five men. The Salem Witch trials offer another example in a long history of the oppression of women, in which outspoken, powerful or ‘difficult’ women were, and arguably are, still deemed as a threat to society. It is interesting to ask why, within the period known as ‘the witch craze’, spanning the 16th and 17th Centuries, around 78% of all those accused of witchcraft were women. Let us take 49-year-old Sarah Osborne, one of the first women accused at Salem, as a key example of how powerful women, in upsetting gender norms, fired up suspicion and hatred in those around her. Sarah Osborne was left a 150-acre farm in Massachusetts by her first husband after his death in 1674, which upset the status-quo when she moved herself and her new husband into her new home, overtaking her male sons who, legally, should have been given control of the land. Her attempt for economic independence, along with accusations from the young ‘afflicted’ girls who claimed she was ‘tormenting’ them, led to her subsequent arrest. She died in jail in 1692 from neglect.
A recent trending song on TikTok by Devon Cole, ‘W.I.T.C.H’, says it best; that what is deemed a witch in modern society is a ‘woman in total control of herself’. How often are modern women, especially women in the media’s spotlight, torn down in this way because of a similar quest to gain economic independence and success? Why is it that businessmen such as Jordan Belfort, whose hideous ambition and illegal enterprises areglamourised by the media, whilst powerful businesswomen such as Taylor Swift are torn down for every move they make being deemed ‘calculated’ or ‘bitchy’. Indeed, Taylor Swift’s timeline as an artist in recent years is a prime example of how these modern witch hunts targeting high-achieving women very much still exist, even if they don’t involve mass executions anymore.
Cancel Culture, a movement very much debated in the current climate, can be turned very quickly into a veiled way of tearing down powerful women, as the negative connotations of power in women is so deeply embedded in society that we find it uncomfortable, even now, when a woman transgresses the social norms she is expected to uphold. #Taylorswiftisoverparty became the number one trending hashtag on twitter for days in July 2016 in what seemed like an unprovoked attack upon the multi Grammy-award winning artist. One tweet read: ‘Taylor Swift is the worst thing in a while to happen to the music industry. Everything about her is calculated and fake’.
The internet witch hunt tearing down her hard-earned career was allegedly provoked by her falling out with Calvin Harris, over a gender pay gap over the song-writing of ‘This is What You Came For’, and their subsequent breakup. Even if one believes that Swift was in the wrong for this event, it is interesting to compare her behaviour to that of a male artist whose behaviour is far worse than hers. Liam Gallagher, for example, who called himself ‘one of the f**king true great rock’n’roll singers on the planet’, is labelled as a ‘comic genius’ for such comments, whilst one could not imagine the uproar if Taylor Swift, or any other female artist, had ditched the drilled-in notion of humility and modesty in making a comment such as this. Although the music industry’s treatment of women is notoriously unfair, this is beginning to change, with awards such as ‘Woman of the Decade’ being introduced to celebrate women’s achievements and protecting them from the abuse which they can face from the media.
As Swift said in her acceptance speech for the award in 2019, ‘as a female in this industry, some people will always have slight reservations about you. Whether you deserve to be there. Whether your male producer or co-writer is the reason for your success. Or whether it was a savvy record label; it wasn’t’. Like the targeted Sarah Osbourne of the witch hunts, who died at the hands of a hostile society objecting to her financial ambitions, one can clearly see how this systemic gender-based bias still affects modern society with regards to contemporary successful businesswomen. It is encouraging, however, to see these powerful women push through media scrutiny, showing that these witch hunts are slowly becoming a thing of the past.
Since coming through the other side of her mass online witch hunt in 2016 onto greater things, with her tenth studio album being released on the 21st October, Swift has fast become an icon and an inspiration to young girls who fear that reaching for heights of success is something that only a man can access.