In Defense of Witches by Mona Chollet

*Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a review copy in exchange for my honest review.

Publication Date: March 8, 2022 (translated)

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press

Pages: 320

Genre: Non Fiction; Essay

Rating: 5/5

In Defense of Witches is an incredible collection of feminist essays that details issues that women are currently facing and correlates it to the atrocities of the witch hunts . Chollet is a French writer and while she also delves into the problems facing American women she also talks a lot about the way her culture historically and currently deals with women’s rights. This book is broken up into different sections which I appreciated because it helped to keep everything organized. In addition it also makes it easier to pick this book again in the future and just narrow in on a topic that I am wanting to reread. The various sections include our reproductive rights, childbearing, mothering and aging.

I also loved that Chollet went hard on how disgusting the view of women’s value being only in their ability to have children but she also had space for women who did choose to be mothers. And even on the topic of motherhood she dove headfirst into the reality that a lot of women don’t enjoy being mothers. While I have always wanted to have kids and thoroughly enjoy the act of raising them I also think it is vitally important that we celebrate the women who choose differently. And being a mother is hard work that I know I wouldn’t enjoy nearly as much if I didn’t have an equal partner in my husband.

It would also be remiss to note that Chollet put together this powerful book on how women’s rights have always been trampled on and disregarded in the name of some other thing. And just last summer America did just that by overturning Roe v Wade and now we have states in our country that no longer allow women to make their own choices regarding their body. It is bewildering and shocking that the witch trials were roughly 300 years ago and women are still being oppressed.

Books like In Defense of Witches are so vital because they are how we as women can keep pushing back on how we have been treated historically and currently. I may not have agreed with every single that Chollet said but I did resonate strongly with the sentiments behind it all. And while I knew that the witch trials were about men trying to control women I never correlated it to issues we are facing now. I loved how Chollet compared the two of them and if I had any critique of the book it would be that I wish we had more of that.