Granddaughters of the Witches #1

Magic, Misogyny, and the Mechanisms of Separation

We carry witchcraft in our bones
whilst magic still sings
inside our heads.

When the witch hunters
imprisoned our ancestors
when they tried to burn the magic away.

Someone should have
warned them
that magic cannot be tamed.

Because you cannot burn away
what has always
been aflame.

― Nikita Gill

Namaste Friends,

Across the world, a quiet storm is brewing, one that carries with it the weight of history and the echoes of age-old fear. Women's rights, hard-won through centuries of struggle, are shrinking back into the shadows. From the violent erasure of reproductive autonomy in many parts of the United States to the suffocating silence imposed on girls barred from education in Afghanistan, the patterns of control and suppression are becoming disturbingly clear. In Iran, women who dare to raise their voices for freedom are met with unrelenting brutality. In the Global South, traditions wrapped in violence—child marriage, genital mutilation—persist like ghosts of another time, refusing to let go of th…