I’m angry that I’ve been denied power, agency, and even basic respect. I, too, am angry – I’m angry that womanhood is a threat dangling over my head, I’m angry that it’s the source of trauma for me. The Once and Future Witches is possibly the angriest book I have ever read in my life, which is very much something I can relate to. It’s a womanhood that feels like it might – maybe – have room for me in it. It’s a type of womanhood I’d like to see more of. While I’m still not so sure that the womanhood we represent in our current day to day society is for me, I’ll confess that this version has a great deal more appeal. It means freedom, strength, and connection. To Harrow, being a woman means to fight, to struggle, and to overcome any obstacle. Certainly, motherhood is a key component of womanhood in The Once and Future Witches, but it’s very clear that it’s not the only way to be a woman. That was quite a bit less fine. Therefore, it was really fucking refreshing, if you’ll excuse my language, to find a book that let womanhood be synonymous with power. until I recognized that most of my sense of womanhood was tied up in threat and trauma. Specifically, how gender is applied to – and usually forced on – women. For most of my life, I’ve more or less identified as “woman-ish” but also agender, which was fine…. Gender and womanhood is something that’s been on my mind a lot, lately. It used to be witches were wild as crows and fearless as foxes, because magic blazed bright and the night was theirs. They conversed with dragons on lonely mountops and rode rowan-wood brooms across full moons they charmed the stars to dance beside them on the solstice and rode to battle with familiars at their heels. Witches lurked in every tangled wood and waited at every midnight-crossroad with sharp-toothed smiles. It used to be the air was so thick with magic you could taste it on your tongue like ash.

The once and future witches