An Induced Misogyny: Why were women the disproportionate victims of the Great Witch-
Hunt?
Witchcraft, it is true, had been punished as a crime in the past, but this was on a much smaller scale
when compared to the prosecutions undertaken by the English, Scottish and most European
hierarchies in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries.1 This increased intensity is not
only supported by comparing the numbers convicted of this felony throughout history, but also by
the sharp rise in the proportion of females (the majority of the respective individual hierarchies’
chosen scapegoats) found guilty of this crime between 1560-1650.