Federici’s Witches: Old Male Myths in New Feminist Garb?

Abstract: In the 1970s, an invention of tradition connected the fight for women’s liberation with the figure of the witch. However, this narrative grounded in male fantasies of the 19th century (Bachofen, Grimm, Michelet, and many others). The German “völkisch” feminism followed this pattern, as did Second Wave feminism after the Second World War, especially in its esoteric, spiritual, and ecological branch. The narrative gained ground in the European, the transatlantic and the postcolonial Women’s Movements. Modern witchcraft research has unmasked the “witchcraft narrative” as a mere invention of tradition. However, the “witch narrative” remains alive in the work of the Autonomist Marxist feminist Silvia Federici. The spirit of Grimm and Michelet, which had been conveyed via Gage, Murray and her epigones of spiritual feminism and eco-feminism, still breathes in Federici's books. This article deconstructs Federici’s witches. They are not the granddaughters of the witches who had not been burned, but simply the epigones of the witches invented by males during the 19th century.