Why are ‘witches’ in folklore and mythology often portrayed as older women?

9 comments

1. To demonize the unwed or the rebellious

2. Intelligent and knowledgeable people are also scary and dangerous people. Elder women are intelligent and knowledgeable, and therefore scary and dangerous. That doesn’t always make them evil necessarily.

   For example, the quintessential hag of Russian Folklore, Baba Yaga, is more often depicted teaching and supporting the hero(ine) of the story than eating him or her, but she always carries the threat of danger about her (I mean, there are human skulls lining the fence around her hut, and she has a mouth full of iron teeth as sharp as knives). But while she is always threatening, she usually serves as a right of passage for the hero(ine) and a source of karmic retribution for the villain, making her not actually evil.

   In medieval Europe, accusations of witchcraft were often used as means of scapegoating marginalized people to explain misfortunes in the community. Vulnerable women, disliked women, ugly/elderly/disabled women living on the edge of the community would all make for easy scapegoats.

   Furthermore, women who performed illicit services for other women that gave them autonomy against a patriarchal society, such as providing medicines for abortions or poisons for handling abusive men, would also be labelled as witches.

3. It takes years to perfect a profession or skill, I would think that much like being a wizard is an old mans game, being a witch is an old womans game.
   Younger Wizards are typically “Wizards apprentice” right?

4. I heard in a documentary that witches were feared not just because they practiced witchcraft but also because they were resistant to societal pressure and in sum didn’t submit to men. Witches were often portrayed as old women because old women live alone, are often widows and answer to no one. They were considered to be the epitome of female independence at the time so there was a widespread effort to demonize them.

5. Cause they don’t take no shit from anyone and that only comes with age 🤣

6. Basically estranged from the family life, outside the society, the ‘other’.

7. A witch needs certain amount of experience you can only gain from time.

8. If it makes you feel better, during the Salem Witch Trials, one of the “witches” accused and thrown into prison was a 5 year old child.

9. LOL! No. it’s because once women started going through menopause they’d lived longer than most. They paid their dues and probably became much more outspoken and independent. Many were widows. My guess is the men thought women went crazy at that age and most craziness in those days was attributed to the devil.