# 3.5 Feminist aspects of Wiccan theology

The Goddess focus of Wiccan theology was attractive to the radical feminist movement, particularly the idea that the early modern witch trials had been an act of ‘gynecide’, and books like Witches, Nurses and Midwives (Ehrenreich and English, 1973) and the influential Pagan writer Starhawk’s The Spiral Dance (1979) leaned into this idea. The work of Starhawk and others also presented an interpretation of Wicca that was more closely aligned with emerging New Age ideas, and the seekership of the baby boomers more broadly. These books helped lead to the boom of the ‘teen witch’ in the 1990s, and their fictionalised counterparts in Sabrina the Teenage Witch (1996-2003, rebooted in 2018), Charmed (1998-2006, rebooted in 2018) and The Craft (1998, and a sequel in 2020).

Figure 11 A demonstrator holding up banner saying “We Are the Granddaughters of the Witches you could Not Burn” during the second annual Women’s March in Manhattan, New York, 2018.

OpenLearn - A spiritual revolution? Wicca and religious change in the 1960s
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