Unfortunately in our current society, misogyny still plays a major role in many areas, whether it be socially, economically, and especially politically. The Salem Witch Trials unfortunately served as a precursor into the misogyny that we would see, and unfortunately it seems now that we will continue to see throughout our nation in many areas, as we are now. Despite hundreds of years passing, misogyny still plays a role in our society, much like it did during The Salem Witch Trials, but in a different way now, for example, banning abortion in many states across the United States tells me that misogyny unfortunately seems to be common place amongst some of our population and government figures. The Salem Witch trials being one of the most notable historical displays of misogyny is important to look back on and understand what truly happened during those times. Despite those who were in charge eventually understanding that these brutally unjust murders were a mistake, it seems that we still have yet to learn from them fully. Looking back at our societies history in that era, it is of note that thousands of women were killed prior to the Salem Witch Trials taking place, because groups of men were supposedly under belief that women had the ability to communicate with the devil and harm those who they chose. These women who were hanged in the Salem Witch Trials never went through trials based on facts, but simply on spectral 'evidence', essentially without proof. Now that we know this obviously isn't the case, I believe it makes it much easier to see truly how misogynistic these men were, even if they weren't trying to be. This was a ruthless crime of the highest degree committed against women as a whole, killing them for no genuine reason. Others many not agree, but I believe these men were taking advantage of a mob-like mentality, or something similar to groupthink, in order to take advantage of these women and their communities, just simply because they could. As horrible as it sounds, these men enacting the Salem Witch Trials had lesser regard for non-male life, and took advantage of the lack of ability to truly discern whether or not someone was really a witch, even though it did not actually matter. These men pushed this thought process and fear onto others, making it much easier to take advantage of these women resulting in thousands of brutal and wrongful murders taking place. These lessons that should have been learned by the vast majority of the population in our society, do not particularly seem to have been understood. There are many examples of how misogyny has taken place in our current society, and still continues to do so to this day, such as the widely publicized outlook on women during the political campaigns of Donald Trump, for example, saying that women for some reason do not deserve a large amount of funding to lessen the amount of health issues taking place. Although Donald Trump walked back this statement, it still shows a brief but unfortunately powerful feeling of misogyny that was clearly taking place. When Hillary Clinton was actively going out of her way to explain that women's rights are human rights, and human rights are women's rights, she was absolutely speaking the truth, and unfortunately it is sad to see how common place misogyny is still to this day. Politicians clamoring together to somehow negatively impact Clinton's campaign by saying that she will proudly stand with women or that funding planned parenthood is bad thing, absolutely comes from a misogynistic view, and needs to continue to be addressed and hopefully fixed. Despite the improvement for some women's rights, we are now seeing women's rights taken away from them in multiple states. Unfortunately I do see many relations between The Salem Witch Trials and current status of women in our society. Whether it be internalized misogyny or externalized misogyny being exercised against women, it is still actively taking place. Even though society has advanced significantly in so many other ways, there is still a large amount of work to be done when it comes to being seen as complete equals for women, unfortunately. The Salem Witch Trials taking place and the death of thousands of women was not even close to enough for our society to learn from, sadly. There is still a plethora of misogyny being used against women amongst our current climate. What does that say about our nation and societies ability to progress? Whether it be killing off supposed 'Witches', when in reality these men who are implementing their misogynistic thoughts about women onto others by proclaiming that those women are witches, creating negative public images of women in general and unfortunately even taking their lives from them. This cannot continue to take place, and is absolutely abhorrent in my opinion.
