are seldom simple, and of all the impure and unsimple things in this world which befog and bedevil the minds of men, their ideas about women take first place. When toward the end of the fifteenth century the Pontiff-appointed inquisitors drew up their infamous handbook of instructions for dealing with witches, the Malleus Maleficarum (1487), or Hammer of Witches, in answer to the question, Why were a greater number of witches found in "the fragile feminine sex" than among men? the answer was as simple as it was succinct. Said the authorities, "It is indeed a fact that it were idle to contradict, since it is accredited by actual experience, apart from the verbal testimony of credible witnesses" (Question 6, Part I). And that was all the evidence required. And that, alas, is the kind of evidence on which men have usually based their prejudgments of women. The myth of feminine evil has been illuminatingly examined by H. R. Hays in his book, The Dangerous Sex .
6 It is a sorry story of hysterical fear and hatred. The story of castration and impotence fantasies, the freezing touch of the witch, vaginas equipped with teeth and snapping like turtles, phallic women and succubae, the femme fatale, the virgin-prostitute alarum, the taboos against menstrual blood, the fear of losing male power, all testify to the deep anxiety underlying male attitudes toward women.
|