Also, unlike the general structural background factor with lynchings of maintaining white domination, the link to male suprematicist ideology is way too loose with the witch craze. Lynchings were _admittedly_ intended to keep African Americans "in their place." And the civil war and recomstruction had put absolute white supremacy in question.
Absolute male supremacy was not contested by anything so dramatic (or indeed I think contested at all) in Europe in the period in question, so there was no threat to quash. And no one as far as I know admitted that witch burnings were intended to keep women down, that's not essential, but you need some more stuff in the middle than: predominantly male persecutors and predominantly female victims. Otherwise all you have is a hand wave towards an explanation, not an explanation per se. The two points mentioned may be linked: it may be that women _happened_ to be predominantly the victims because they were powerless, rather than because they were women, even though they were powerless because they were women.
--- Charles Brown <cbrown at michiganlegal.org> wrote:
>
> andie:
>
> I don't know whata a plausible materialist
> hypothesis
> is, but so far neither of you has suggested one.
>
> ^^^^^
> CB: The materialist explanation pertinent here is
> the materialist
> explanation for male supremacist ideology in Europe
> in general at this
> time,_in general_. That explanation would be in
> order for men to control
> reproduction and enslave women for other labors.
> Witchhunting was a specific expression of general
> male supremacist ideology.
> The size of the witchhunt could be "irrational" , in
> the sense that there
> doesn't have to be a materialist explanation for any
> given, specific sudden
> _jump_ in witchhunting or other expressions of male
> supremacy.
>
> It's like racism in the U.S. in the early 20-th
> Century. There is a basic
> materialist explanation for that racism in general:
> dividing the working
> class. At any given time, there might be a surge in
> lynchings but there need
> not be a specifically materialist explanation for
> that surge.
>
>
>
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