They Didn’t Burn Witches. They Burned Women.

Every fall, witches become cute again.

They show up on coffee mugs and porch signs, tucked between pumpkins at at stores, printed on sweatshirts, and decorating pretty much anything that can reasonably hold a pointy hat. I’ll take the candles, the moon phases, Practical Magic, and the general feeling that maybe we should all disappear into the woods for a while.

But underneath it all is a history that isn't particularly cute and cannot be ignored.
That is the part I kept coming back to when I created my version of, They Didn't Burn Witches. They Burned Women.

It's a simple design. A woman's profile, a witch hat, and those words. I wanted the artwork itself to stay fairly minimal because the phrase already does the heavy lifting. You read it once and understand the general point.

Then, hopefully, you think about it a little longer.

Because the history behind those words is complicated.

First, the history-nerd disclaimer: the phrase isn't meant literally. The people executed during the Salem witch trials weren't burned. Nineteen were hanged, one man was pressed to death, and others died while imprisoned. Men were accused of witchcraft too, both in Salem and throughout the much larger history of witch hunts.

So no, this shirt isn't claiming every person accused of witchcraft was a woman or that every accused woman was burned at the stake.

The reality is more interesting than the slogan.

Across the major European witch hunts, women made up the overwhelming majority of those prosecuted for witchcraft. Historians have spent a very long time trying to understand exactly why. There isn't one convenient answer. Religion mattered. Community tensions mattered. Poverty, property, family disputes, illness, fear and plain old grudges could matter. Ideas about gender mattered too.

And I think that's where this design really begins.

The women accused of witchcraft weren't actually the creatures we've turned into Halloween decorations. They weren't flying around on broomsticks or casting spells over bubbling cauldrons.

They were women living ordinary lives.

That's the part that gets lost when hundreds of years turn human beings into folklore.

Some were wives. Some were mothers. Some were widows. Some were poor. Some had property. Some were dependent on their communities and some apparently rubbed those communities the wrong way. Some were probably difficult people. Frankly, after several hundred years of women being expected to be pleasant, I'm comfortable leaving room for the possibility that a few were absolute pains in the ass.

They were still human.
Then, someone called them something else.

A witch.

Once that label stuck, suddenly everything about a woman could be interpreted through it. Her behavior. Her relationships. Her misfortunes. Someone else's misfortune. Things that previously seemed ordinary could become evidence that something was wrong with her.

That's the part of this history that sticks with me, because we've never entirely stopped doing that to women. The words have changed considerably, thank goodness, but women still seem to occupy this strange space where there is always a correct amount of everything, we're supposed to be.

Be confident, but not intimidating.
Successful, but not too ambitious.
Attractive, but don't try too hard.
Be a good mother, but don't let motherhood define you.
Have an opinion but perhaps deliver it in a tone everyone finds agreeable.

It's exhausting just writing the list.

And women have been stepping outside those little boxes for as long as people have been building them.

That's one reason I think the witch has become such an interesting symbol for women now. Somewhere along the way, we took this figure that once represented danger, suspicion and something society should fear, and basically said, Fine. We'll keep her.

Now she's independent. Smart. A little strange. Probably owns too many plants. She reads banned books and knows exactly what phase the moon is in.

I'm kidding. Mostly.

Something is satisfying about women reclaiming an image that was once used against them. The modern witch has become less about being feared and more about refusing to water down yourself into whatever version of womanhood that makes everyone else comfortable.

Still, I don't want the witchy aesthetic to completely swallow the women underneath the history. That's why the wording of this design mattered to me.

They didn't burn witches. They burned women.

It's intentionally blunt because the word witch can create distance. It turns a person into a character. A category. Something strange enough that we don't immediately picture an ordinary human life behind it. P

That doesn't mean every accused witch throughout history was secretly some rebellious feminist being punished for refusing to conform. That's a very tempting modern version of the story, but history is rarely that tidy. These accusations happened for different reasons in different places over hundreds of years.

I actually think the messy version matters more because those women didn't need to be extraordinary for what happened to them to matter.
They didn't need to be revolutionaries.
They didn't need to be secretly practicing medicine in the woods or challenging the patriarchy before breakfast. They were human beings were caught in systems of fear, suspicion and accusation.

That's enough.

And maybe that's ultimately why I wanted this design in the shop. All The Vibez has plenty of designs that say exactly what they mean the second you see them. This one asks for another beat.

You see the witch. You read the words.
And maybe you stop thinking about witches for a minute and start thinking about the women.

That's what I wanted.

I'll still happily participate in witch season. Bring on the black cats, pointy hats, pumpkins, candles, and Practical Magic marathons. I'm not surrendering any of that.

I simply think there's room between the Halloween decorations for a little history too, because witches make great folklore.

The women behind it were real.