Do women make better witches?

[Clockwork Ghost]

Hi there,

Just wondering, do you people think that women make better followers of the various branches of witchcraft and why? Do you feel that the gods and goddesses of witchcraft are geared more to the female archetype, and do you believe that the practice of witchcraft is more of a female-centric paradigm?

Speaking from a traditional hedge witchcraft perspective, I would personally say that this paradigm is better suited to women than it is to men because the correspondences between god forms and practitioners require a certain relationship that suits women over men, the use of shaven yew wands in sky-clad ceremonies requires that the practitioners be female physically, and the nurturing elements prevalent within the magic suit the more motherly instincts of women over the dominating instincts of men.

Now, this topic isnt meant to be sexist, so please dont start discussing it as such, Im merely interested to know if women are better suited to the paradigm over men, or if certain paradigms within the witchcraft sphere are more masculine than others. To assume that all paradigms suit both sexes equally is ignorant, as each paradigm has correspondences that suit a certain mindset better than others, the extreme paths being really only specifically suited to one gender.

So, there we go - what do you guys reckon. Do women make better witches, what types of witchcraft suit men, and which types of witchcraft should men just stay away from entirely?

[reptilian]

Well, my introduction to witchcraft was entirely by accident and rather informal, and it came about because hoodoo and voodou always enchanted me. I would say that within those practices there are elements that suit the masculine, as well as those that are more feminine. I think that hoodoo has not only a place for both forces, but that it works best with both involved.
Beyond that, it does seem that some witchcraft traditions are female-centric, although I also think it's possible that is more of an appearance than a fact. Wicca, from the little I know of it, seems to be based in the feminine, but a lot of the Celtic-flavored practices seem to favor the feminine because the masculine counterparts (druidism? is there a better term for that?) are lost or have little known about them.
In ancient Greek traditions, and even in modern Hellenism, there are "mysteries" that apply to both men and women, as well as many many more that are intended for each sex exclusively.

Also, there's a stereotype that goes with the word "witchcraft" that involves kitchen witchery, candles, sympathetic magic, etc that are generally thought of as feminine expressions.

I suppose that I do feel a little more attuned to my femininity when practicing witchcraft but that could be related to feeling more connected to my physical existence than I usually am.

[Rin]

I was a few hundred words into a response when I realized that it's a question without a real answer, so I scrapped that post and wrote another. 'Witchcraft' can mean so many different things depending on who's saying it and in what context, that you'd need to be much more specific to come to a conclusion. 'Witchcraft' isn't really a school or system of magic in the way say, chaos magic, is, it's a rather broad term that can encompass a huge variety of practices.

Everything from the various branches of voodoo/hoodou and related systems to the probably hundreds of different branches of wicca seems to fall under the label of witchcraft, at some stage or another anyway.

Even if you narrow it down specifically to European-originating Wiccan witchcraft, it's a hard question. You've got everything from feminist, woman exclusive Dianic traditions to traditions that are exclusive to gay men. If you want to fall somewhere in the middle and look at the fairly vanilla varieties of Wicca that descent from the Gardner/Buckland traditions, you'll find that they, at least in theory, emphasize male and female divinity equally.

However, I think the reality is that (despite being founded by a man, arguably), the combination of 'witch' being historically a feminine noun and a large number of women flocking to Wicca because it provided a spiritual outlet that didn't emphasize masculine divinity exclusively (as in the judeo-christian tradition that dominates western society) lead to, in reality, the majority of Wiccan groups leaning more towards the feminine, both in their membership and their magical practices.

I think that's about as close as you can come to an answer. Wicca was intended to be a nature-based religion and system of magic that honored the feminine and the masculine in the divine and utilized those forces equally, because nature contains both in equality and balance, and cannot survive without one or the other. Practiced in this manner, there's no reason that either gender should somehow be 'better' at it than the other. That said, the socio-cultural climate in which early Wicca emerged did lead to some (perhaps the majority? There's no way of knowing) traditions and groups developing with an overly feminine leaning, which I can imagine would make some men either uncomfortable or unattuned to their practices.