What should a witch look like

The witch has a green face and a fleet of flying monkeys. She wears scarves and leather and lace. She lives in Africa; on the island of Aeaea; in a tower; in a chicken-leg hut; in Peoria, Illinois. She lurks in the forests of fairy tales, in the gilded frames of paintings, in the plotlines of sitcoms and YA novels, and between the bars of ghostly blues songs.

Our witches say as much about us as they do about anything else — for better and for worse. More than anything, though, the witch is a shining and shadowy symbol of female power and a force for subverting the status quo.

No matter what form she takes, she remains an electric source of magical agitation that we can all plug into whenever we need a high-voltage charge. She is also a vessel that contains our conflicting feelings about female power: our fear of it, our desire for it and our hope that it can — and will — grow stronger, despite the flames that are thrown at it.

Whether the witch is depicted as villainous or valorous, she is always a figure of freedom — both its loss and its gain. She is perhaps the only female archetype who is an independent operator. Virgins, whores, daughters, mothers, wives — each of these is defined by whom she is sleeping with or not, the care that she is giving or that is given to her, or some sort of symbiotic debt that she must eventually pay.

Witches have power on their own terms. They have agency. They create. They praise. They commune with the spiritual realm, freely and free of any mediator. They metamorphose, and they make things happen. They are change agents whose primary purpose is to transform the world as it is into the world they would like it to be. This is also why being called a witch and calling oneself a witch are usually two vastly different experiences. The second is an act of reclamation, an expression of autonomy and pride.

Both of these aspects of the archetype are important to keep in mind. They may seem like contradictions, but there is much to glean from their interplay. The witch is the ultimate feminist icon because she is a fully rounded symbol of female oppression and liberation. She shows us how to tap into our own might and magic, despite the many who try to strip us of our power. Printed by permission. Contact us at letters time. Pam Grossman. By Pam Grossman. TIME Ideas hosts the world's leading voices, providing commentary on events in news, society, and culture.

We welcome outside contributions. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors. Like other portraitists, such as the contemporary Dutch photographer Rineke Dijkstra, or the twentieth-century German master August Sander, Denny captures her subjects suspended delicately between performativity and naturalism.

These self-identified witches are positioning themselves before us, fully conscious of our eye, and Denny is allowing them a lovely three-dimensionality. By Naomi Fry. Earl Sweatshirt is a nineteen-year-old m. Naomi Fry is a staff writer at The New Yorker. During the Spanish colonization of Latin America in the s, women gathered in public spaces to perform rituals of community and spirituality as a form of resistance. For some Latinx women today, brujeria is a holy way to be in touch with their ancestors and build strength against institutionalized racism.

Some even embody witches in their skate-crews, like the feminist skaters Brujas in the Bronx. US-based activists are also invoking the witch as a symbol of political resistance. For example, interest in witches has soared since the presidential elections, says Krohn. Groups have also gotten together for ritualized hexings against other men they believe are perpetuating the patriarchy, such as Brett Kavanaugh and Brock Turner.

Some conservative advocacy groups and internet trolls accuse liberal female politicians like Hillary Clinton and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of being witches in an attempt to marginalize and shun them.

Environmental activists, too, are looking to witches to represent their longing to go back to natural and environmentally-conscious ways of life, one of increasing resonance to a planet in the midst of a climate crisis. Because a witch can be a woman who worships Mother Earth and the moon and who looks to botany for healing, invoking witches reminds us that humans are at one with the Earth and must work with it to survive in the long term.

Feminist activists and progressive social media influencers are also actively working to dispel the dichotomy between the good witch and the bad witch, which is often reflected by different beauty standards, in which ugly equals evil think Wizard of Oz.

Powerful women are all colors, shapes, and sizes—but never monstrously green. Now, by creating a more complex picture of the witch, women are adding dimensions to what it means to be a woman. By providing your email, you agree to the Quartz Privacy Policy. Skip to navigation Skip to content. Discover Membership. Editions Quartz. More from Quartz About Quartz. Follow Quartz. These are some of our most ambitious editorial projects.

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