From the beginning of US History until present day, the people of this country have had fears as a society. These fears come and go as science and knowledge on topics once feared, increases. For example, around the 1980’s the HIV epidemic began in the United States. Most people were very unfamiliar with the disease so fear arose throughout the country. After research increased, the angst of contracting the disease dissipated in most people. Prior to that, a different societal fear arose in 1962. That being the Salem Witch trials of Massachusetts. The people in this small town were unfamiliar with the idea of witchcraft, so any and all began to be blamed for crimes they didn’t commit. Eventually, they too became more educated on the topic and their fears dissipated, but by that time it was too late for many innocent lives.
It was a short scare, compared to most, but the outcome was very deadly. The trials resulted in around seventeen women being executed for crimes they did not commit. Over two hundred people were arrested and accused of practicing witchcraft over a year and three months timespan. Although women weren’t the only people accused, the majority of those accused and executed were indeed women.
During this time in history, medicine and science were nowhere near as advanced as they are now. As we know, science is always evolving and changing so during this time period believing that one was acted upon by a witch was a completely valuable suggestion. The first case involved two young girls acting as if they were taking part in an exorcism. Doctors had never seen symptoms like the young girls were experiencing, so they resorted to something that at the time, made sense to them. The other people in the town were clueless and scared as well, so it was easy to believe that it actually was witchcraft that they were dealing with.
Nowadays, there is a lot of controversy on the cause of this fatal happening, but the fear of the unknown is a very possible theory. Imagine you live in a small town where everyone knows everyone. Suddenly children begin to act strange and are acting out in ways similar to what you know as an exorcism. We all believe and trust our doctors when they tell us what’s wrong and that’s exactly what the first family affected by the witch trials did. After the children were diagnosed as being affected by witchcraft, the town of Salem fell apart. People after people were accused of practicing witchcraft and members of the communities were being arrested one day after another. Today, we can conclude that there was no witchcraft being practiced in the town of Salem, but the lack of knowledge on the topic is what led the people to believe that they were indeed being affected by just that. As technology and science advanced over time, we were able to prove paradigms like this, false.
Another possible cause for the Salem Witch Trials was the simple act of revenge and the lack of a justice system. As the days went on, the people of Salem began to see what happened to those just simply accused of practicing witchcraft without any proof at all. Some people began to use it to their own advantage. In many cases, if one had a slight grudge against their neighbor or another person in the town a simple accusation could rid the person of their existence as simple as that. If this were to happen now, the process of accusation would be much more complex. You could not just simply tell a person of higher power you saw your neighbor commiting a crime, and then watch them be burned at the stake the next day. It was an easy way to get rid of your enemies, and people did just that. The accusations quickly began to get out of hand which is why it played such a big role in the reasoning behind this terrible time in history. So many people were being affected whether they were accused out of fear or accused because they had some enemies in the town. But why were seventeen of the twenty executed, women?
This is the biggest leading question I had before researching this topic further. After I conducted more research, I came to the realization that the fear of women becoming superior was the biggest cause leading up to this massacre. Throughout all of history, women have been looked down upon and thought of as inferior to the opposite sex. In 1920 women had gained their right to vote, which in many cases scared the men. When the trials began to advance, many people saw this as an opportunity to push back on women. They saw it as a way to make women feel powerless, like they had no rights again. Women feared simply walking down the street because if they were to be accused they either spent time in jail, or were executed like the many others.
Although the fear of witchcraft is something we can gladly say is in the past, the fear of superiority in women is still something that we as a society struggle with to this day. Women are still looked down upon by some men and considered to be worthless when it comes to high intensity jobs and having any sort of intelligence. So many inspiring women dedicated their entire lives to working towards equality for men and women. Others were burned at the stake unaware that they would one day be a topic of discussion to stress the importance of equality and women’s rights. History has been known to repeat itself, let’s prove that wrong and get over the fear of women overpowering the male population.