Evil in the Shape of a Woman: Form and Function of
Gender in the Witch Hunts of New England, 1620-1725 (Still Image)

Evil in the Shape of a Woman: Form and Function of
Gender in the Witch Hunts of New England, 1620-1725

DeMasi, Mercedes

Gender has shaped the conception of evil since the beginning of mythology. The archetypes of good and evil are easier to conceptualize when anthropomorphized in the shapes of men and women. Phillip Cole notes that one of the Devil's traditional appearances is in the form of a human: evil residing amongst us in our image (2006:2). Good and evil are concepts derived from attributions of moral judgments to patterns of human actions, although supernatural forces are often used as an explanation for extreme manifestations of "good" and "evil".

6pgs