Gail Collins Quote
But there’s something about the story of Salem that makes it a Rorschach test for our own vision of history. Some people look back on it as a story about repressed sexual hysteria. Some think it was all about the tensions between the settlers and the Indians. Others see slightly subliminated class warfare. Whatever happened, it was soaked in issues of gender. Women were the beginning and end of the Salem witch-hunt, the first accusers and the bulk of the accused. If seventeenth-century New England was a place full of women with personalities that were stronger than the society around them was prepared to accept, the witch craze can easily be interpreted as a story that began with teenage girls in crisis who stumbled on a very bad but effective way of trying to take control of their unhappy environment.
But there’s something about the story of Salem that makes it a Rorschach test for our own vision of history. Some people look back on it as a story about repressed sexual hysteria. Some think it was all about the tensions between the settlers and the Indians. Others see slightly subliminated class warfare. Whatever happened, it was soaked in issues of gender. Women were the beginning and end of the Salem witch-hunt, the first accusers and the bulk of the accused. If seventeenth-century New England was a place full of women with personalities that were stronger than the society around them was prepared to accept, the witch craze can easily be interpreted as a story that began with teenage girls in crisis who stumbled on a very bad but effective way of trying to take control of their unhappy environment.
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About Gail Collins
Collins writes a weekly op-ed column for the Times from her liberal perspective, published Thursdays . Since 2014 she has co-authored a blog with conservative journalist Bret Stephens entitled "The Conversation", at NYTimes.com, featuring bi-partisan political commentary.