Women In The Salem Witch Trials

During the colonial period, around the 1600’s, life for women was not the best, but in fact it was hard since women were considered inferior than men and were never allowed to do much. Women were given basic household tasks to complete and were expected to follow all the rules men had set for them. In a society dominated by men, witchcraft was not a way for women to assert their will and power but in fact it was an excuse to oppress women even more. A figure that is prominent in the Salem Witch Trials is Satan and it was believed that many of the witchcraft mishaps that happened were due to Satan being around. The Puritans believed that Satan was trying to attack their soul and that it was the physical body that protected their soul from him. As Angela Schultz quotes in her article from Exemplore, “If the body was strong, then the soul was better protected therefore, men who were created physically stronger were viewed to be less susceptible to Satan’s attacks”. Puritan men viewed women as feeble beings who could do no less than housework or tasks that did not involve much labor. …show more content…
Many beliefs were held for example, if a women can do something on her own, it means she is independent, something the Puritan men could not bear. According to Emma Backe in her article from The Greek Anthropologist, “Many women who were maligned of witchcraft were also female healers, women who destabilized “masculine” standards of medicine”. Women were seen as the caretakers of those who were sick or needed help so it is obvious that they would make medicine that could help those people. In the Puritan society though, men could not tolerate this since being able to “cure inside problems” seemed unconventional to them so they would label that as witchcraft too. Backe also points out, “Women were also persecuted for associating with other woman, accused of forming covens or holding parties with