Review of In Defense of Witches: The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial by Mona Chollet

Women are some kind of magic, to quote amanda lovelace, so it’s no wonder the patriarchy thinks we’re witches. The metaphor (and, for parts of history, literal belief) of woman-as-witch is a potent one. In Defense of Witches seeks to connect contemporary feminist struggles with the legacy of the witch hunts and trials that ran through Europe and America. Mona Chollet, translated here by Sophie R. Lewis, looks at a number of themes, like beauty standards, or the decision whether or not to have kids. I’m not sure how much I learned from this book, but it has some good synthesis of second- and third-wave feminism and presents a more European perspective than I’m used to.

The chapters are long: in addition to the introduction, there are only four: “A Life of One’s Own,” “Wanting Sterility,” “The Dizzy Heights,” and “Turning the World Upside Down.” Averaging fifty pages, each chapter packs quite the punch. Chollet begins by examining the desire for independence beyond the home. From there, she talks about the pressure to procreate, followed by the idea that women have an expiration date, that after a certain age we just can’t be successful or desired anymore. The book finishes on an optimistic note, referring to progress Chollet sees through movements like #MeToo, and a reminder that we can take control of our bodies without being essentialist about gender.

If I am disappointed in In Defense of Witches, it’s only because I was expecting more … witches? Like I kind of thought this book was about witch hunts and trials. Chollet really only references these in passing, however. There are a few juicy quotes from primary sources and researchers’ materials. But mainly she’s using the idea of women as witches as a lens to examine the tension between feminist writings of the twentieth century and broader society’s pushback. There’s nothing wrong with this, of course, but the way the book’s title, subtitle, and design lean so heavily into it, I feel like I’m sensible for expecting there to be more of a connection.

As it is, I really enjoyed how many French writers and thinkers Chollet mentions and quotes. My feminist reading (most of my reading, let’s be real) is in a bubble of American, British, and occasionally Canadian authors. I don’t recognize a lot of the names Chollet drops—and that’s a good thing. I commented to a close friend of mine who is French that I felt like I was getting a window into what it’s like to come up into feminism in France. On top of this, of course, Chollet’s view itself is informed by French culture and standards—as evidenced by the very casual way in which she discusses wanting to have a lot of lovers, lol, and takes shots at American culture for being far less tolerant of this attitude among women.

Chollet’s attitudes and arguments are firmly rooted in segments of second-wave feminism; indeed, In Defense of Witches can in many ways be viewed as a love letter to Gloria Steinem, whom Chollet quotes and praises interminably. On one hand, I appreciate this because my view of second-wave feminism is a little jaded and has been coloured by its appropriation by TERFs. On the other hand, although Chollet’s analysis makes offhand noises towards inclusion of queer and trans identities, it stops short of a full-throated attempt to integrate trans and nonbinary people. So in this respect, I ran up against the limits of this book’s analysis fairly quickly: it pulls together some interesting ideas, but it also doesn’t bring up anything all that new or radical.

Probably the most enduring theme here is rationality versus irrationality and the way the former is inevitably masculine-coded, the latter, feminine-coded. Chollet argues that irrationality and emotionality are not the same. Patriarchy’s attempts to restrict women’s power and influence are rooted, in part, she maintains, because male-dominated institutions feared the power, creativity, and efficiency of women’s emotions. Hence the attempts to paint us as “hysterical.” Chollet makes the case that emotionality, while not an essentialist quality and something that many men can possess as well, is key to a more compassionate and just future in our society—something with which I am sympathetic. If there has been any theme to my overall arc, it has been moving away from the highly rational, academic mindset I cultivated in high school towards a mindset that embraces the irrational when needed (is it any wonder I found my true gender along the way?).

In Defense of Witches is an all right book, and for others, could very well be revelatory. For me it was a fine way to pass the time, and it exposed me to writers and ideas that I might not have otherwise heard on this side of the pond. However, it wasn’t quite the book I was looking for, and in some respects, it doesn’t go as far as I wanted it to.