We’re witches and we’re hunting you: Matriarchy and misogyny in conjure wife

Abstract

In recent years, America has adopted a particularly combative approach to gender relations. Stories of sexual assault elicit jokes about flirting being illegal, investigations are described as “witch hunts, " and chants of “lock her up!" seem less about opponents and more about generalized hostility toward women. This chapter examines recent misogyny through a midcentury novel and its cinematic adaptations. Fritz Leiber’s 1943 novel, Conjure Wife, posits that all women are witches. A professor who discovers and protests this must then protect his family while coming to terms with his new understanding of women. Two filmed renditions-1944‘s Weird Woman and 1962‘s Night of the Eagle-place competing emphases on exoticizing the wife or on a showdown that moves the emphasis toward a more literal battle of the sexes. Leiber’s vision of witchcraft, as well as its diverging adaptations, offers a framework for evaluating gender politics in our own world.