I picked up sam george-allen's witches because I was drawn to the title, of course. as a woman who, from a young age has been intrigued by witches (true millennial I loved hocus pocus and ursula in the little mermaid was just fascinating). the abstract flames arranged as a small bonfire on the cover also drew me in. I know, I know, you aren’t supposed to judge a book by its cover, but, really — who doesn’t? it is so hard not to.
the tagline on the front cover is what cemented the purchase for me “the transformative power of women working together.” this is something I am increasingly drawn toward — the power of women, women working together, the community they create and the change they bring about.
through the course of her book, george-allen takes us through personal experiences and interviews women about their participation in traditionally female positions. she researches and speaks to nuns, midwives, influencer make-up tutorialists and ballet dancers. she speaks on the controversies of these groups; how ballet has been fraught with an imperfect almost unattainable sense of beauty and how most directors are men, forcing these standards onto female ballet dancers. how as the patriarchal, colonist medicine became institutionalized, it marginalized and discredited centuries old practices of medicine and midwifery, in turn losing many age-old practices to history. she discusses the issue of the exclusion of trans women from the female community and discusses the difficulties women have in cementing their voices in places that are traditionally male (music, farming, sports). women have always held power in these places and their subjugation has been part the role of patriarchal tellings of history.
witches also shows us what we have because of these groups of women and there is a lot to be thankful for. her chapter on sex work normalizes it in a way I haven’t often seen, although that could be due to what I read or don’t read and the much more accepting view of sex work that australia has put in place compared to the views of the US legal system.
she visits with a nun who has earned multiple degrees and taught at harvard. I love that she included nuns in her book. a life of restraint, dedicated to a relationship with a higher power (focused really on yourself while helping others) is fascinating to me. something about surrendering “all that other stuff” to live in contemplation and focus on the mundane and cerebral doesn’t sound too bad. george-allen echoes my sentiments, as both of us realize its not for us, in some ways we admire those that do. witches touches on the problematic uses of convents over time but also on the tradition of radical nuns, those that chose the life and the many feminist nuns that openly defied the church.
sam george-allen speaks to many amazing women within these groups and what their chosen group means to them, what they see as important and how it uplifts them, but (this is where I found myself wanting more from witches) what the power of these group as a whole has done, and can do, is missing. When I think of the transformative power of women working together, I think of what a group of women can bring, not how one woman works within that group. of course individual experience is essential, but the broader view and accomplishments of these female groups cannot go without recognition.
Witches allows reader and author alike to see the groundbreaking, society changing work that women do. It allows us to get inside women and their drivers, their commitments and why they love these traditional spaces of women’s work. we need to hear the stories of these powerful, radical women by making their voices heard and important. lead by example. but what about the movements themselves, what have women, groups of women collaborated to make? what has their power transformed? without knowing that, how do we scale our individual efforts to that of a whole?
overall I recommend
read if you like: personal essays, learning about women and current(ish) affairs, zoning out to random dance videos and makeup tutorials
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