“Women are witches of the night, preying on the innocence of man, steeling their victories with a smoldered smirk and a rotting corpse.” 

History has scorned them, society has judged them, heroes have killed them for a simple difference between anatomy and psychology. And they are left with the simple justification of fear: women are witches, women are weak. 

Los Angeles 1995, the whole world watches with baited breath as a certain terror grips the throats of millions across the globe. The OJ Simpson Trial is one for the ages, glimmering in infamy and popularity as famed football-star goes head-to-head with the witty genius of prosecution lawyer Marcia Clark. 

The stage is set, reporters poised with a pen, ready to rip the case’s publicity to shreds. Clark takes the stand, blazing eyes set with a certain, subtle determination. 

Her opponent: defense lawyer Johnny Cochran.

“Hysterical,” Cochran calls out in an objection to Judge Lance Allen Ito as Clark cracks the whip on Simpson once again, going to battle for the victims of the case, murdered. 

And with her brazen fury, Clark absolutely decimates her very male, very arrogant adversary, claiming that he and his remarks are inappropriate and sexually motivated, dueling with the eyes of the cameras and the eyes of the world. 

She was right. 

In the modern world of dull literature and language, hysteria equals hormonal fluctuation. Mood swings, outbursts, draughts of anger and resentment; the pinnacle of feminine rage. Over the millennia of the history of sexism, women’s “unprecedented” hormonal changes have been explained as a psychological deterioration. 

Hysteria, the psychological effect of emotions dancing with insanity. Clark was far from that, but she will forever be remembered as the witch of words, responsible for the massacre of fragile masculinity.

The association of witch and woman should be archaic, founded by the ancient superstitions of 17th century Salem, Massachusetts. 

The Witch Trials, ruled by man and reaped by ignorance, hunted innocent women suspected of being evil sorcerers, supposedly cursing victims of the town. 25 people died; 19 by hanging, one by torture, and five by neglection in jail. Both men and women were convicted of heinous crimes. However, the Hunt was ruled by the inability to accept and trust women in the colonial-society. 

Since then, we have deemed the acts of the New Salem Massachusetts Witch Trials unfounded, captivated by the group psychology of herd mentality and mass terror. 

Yet, women still face the constant accusation of terrorizing the masses because they are “hysterical.” Because the great doctors of the modern world still refuse to conduct viable research dedicated to the understanding of hormonal imbalance and menstrual cycles. 

Because it is simply just easier to claim women are crazy. Because she can’t be more than the housewife responsible for wrangling children and comforting husbands. 

The right to abortion, stolen from beneath our feet. The right to think and speak and breathe and eat, criticised by the perfect poise of society. 

The right to live, robbed the day we were born. Borne from a mother, facing the same trials of false liberties. Facing the future of her daughter, a curse and a blessing we must live with.

Women deserve more than the stereotype of weakness. Women deserve more than the accusations of witch. 

Women deserve a break from the hellscape they are forced to live in, an asylum dedicated to the punishment of women’s “hormonal hysteria.”

“Women, our witches of the night, praying for the innocence of man, stealing their victories from a smoldered smirk and a rotting corpse.”