"All witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable. . . . What else is a woman but a foe to friendship, a necessary evil, a natural temptation. . . . And what, then is to be thought of those witches who in this way sometimes collect male organs in great numbers?" (qtd. in Itzin, Cathereine. "Bewitching the Boys." Times Educational Supplement, December 27, 1985, p. 13 and in Bird, Anne-Marie. "Women Behaving Badly: Dahl's Witches Meet the Women of the Eighties." Children's Literature in Education 29 (1998): 119-29).

Also consider more recent witch hunts:

"Demonizing women who refuse to conform to patriarchal strictures is not a new phenomenon. An examination of the documented evidence of the witch hunts and trials from the fifteenth century to the eighteenth century reveals a connection between a woman's social status and her representation as evil. Accusations of witchcraft, arising from irrational but deeply felt fears and social anxieties, appear to have intensified in direct response to periods of social, economic, political, and sexual unrest among women. In these societies, any woman who was perceived to be deviant in some way—assertive, "too" successful, nonconformist—in short, any woman who challenged the patriarchal order—might be suspected of witchcraft" (Bird 127).

Works Cited:

Bird, Anne-Marie. "Women Behaving Badly: Dahl's Witches Meet the Women of the Eightes." Children's Literature in Education 29 (1998): 119-29.