From the witch trials in Valais, Switzerland, to the coerced confessions of Pendle and Salem, this episode uncovers the long arc of misogyny cloaked in religious fervor and legal authority. We trace how accusations of heresy & witchcraft can come as a result of moral corruption and political instability — and have been wielded to control women, the poor, the different, and the defiant throughout history. With voices lost to fire and rope, and others silenced by shame or forced to flee, this isn't just a story of the past. This is a ritual the patriarchy never quite stopped performing.

In part 2, we follow this ritual as it evolves—from the Puritan gallows to the propaganda of Nazi Germany, from Cold War suspicion to today’s backlash against inclusion. The targets may change, but the hunt remains the same.

greatinthesack@gmail.com

www.instagram.com/@greatinthesacktruecrimepodcast

www.tiktok.com/greatinthesackpodcast

www.tiktok.com/neurodivergentfeminist

show sources:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-21/girl-brutally-tortured-in-png-after-accusations-of-sorcery/9168876

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/australasia/women-witchcraft-papua-new-guinea-b1863343.html

https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/cambridge-history-of-latin-american-womens-literature/women-cronistas-in-colonial-latin-america/5E27EA2D8B80D9441CA470E3CCD21F1F

https://www.thecollector.com/inquisition-cases-colonial-mexico/

https://kids.britannica.com/kids/article/Ferdinand-and-Isabella/353119

https://www.thoughtco.com/european-witch-hunts-timeline-3530786#:~:text=The%20European%20witch%20hunts%20lasted,and%20more%20susceptible%20to%20witchcraft.

https://www.irss.uoguelph.ca/index.php/irss/article/view/5801/5957

Kieckhefer, Richard (2013). "The First Wave of Trials for Diabolical Witchcraft". The Oxford Handbook of Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe and Colonial America.

https://web.archive.org/web/20070813092734/http://www.lclark.edu/~schoen/weyer.html

https://scandinavianhistory.org/2021/06/20/the-witch-trials-of-dalarna/

https://folklife.si.edu/magazine/swedish-witch-trials-dark-heritage

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Witch_trials_in_early_modern_Scotland

https://www.worldhistory.org/Salem_Witch_Trials/?gad_source=1&gbraid=0AAAAAoULJ02Zg_XnLF-mUWXgvP6pYSvk8&gclid=Cj0KCQjwt8zABhDKARIsAHXuD7aBBG_K_lNYrPir26w76fTEEkCrE9Lr6-k8KuWm7GSupKx0Pacuj9kaAsehEALw_wcB

*Content warning** political violence, racism, and brief mention of suicide.

*A FEW VERBAL MISTAKES*: at 2 occasions I referred to the BPP's early name as the "Black Panther Party OF Self Defense" & "Black Panther Party of Defense" which is incorrect. It should have been said, "Black Panther Party for Self Defense"...sorry-sometimes my mouth has its own plan -_-

Hi there, listeners! This episode examines the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s campaign against the Black Panther Party under the secret so-called "counter-intelligence program" known as COINTELPRO. Through different people's accounts, we trace how a community-based organization that provided free breakfast for children, health clinics, and sickle-cell testing became one of the government’s most hated, highest-priority targets.

The discussion follows the founding of the Party, its social programs & the FBI’s tactics of infiltration, surveillance & what is referred to as “snitch-jacketing,” which culminated in the raid that killed Illinois chairman Fred Hampton in 1969. We weigh out why the Party’s vision of independence: feeding, educating, and protecting their communities, was perceived as a danger to the political establishment...spoiler: when marginalized groups begin to see the system as unnecessary, the patriarchy doubles down.

This installment also marks the near conclusion of the Witch Hunt series’ exploration of COINTELPRO. After the conclusion of COINTELPRO, there will be one last episode (i think!) of the witch hunt series regarding a few '90s tropes and demonizations. Then my usual case-per-episode will resume...cases that reveal how power-imbalances and patriarchy can have devestating consequences. MMByyyeeeeee!

Show notes:

Feeding America's link for donating and seeking help:

https://www.feedingamerica.org/

SOURCES:

https://blackpast.org/african-american-history/black-panther-partys-free-breakfast-program-1969-1980/

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Black-Panther-Party

https://chicago.suntimes.com/immigration/2025/10/01/massive-immigration-raid-on-chicago-apartment-building-leaves-residents-reeling-i-feel-defeated?fbclid=IwY2xjawNLbpRleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFLZFZ5SG9TSEJLMDczWThlAR5Nw5TCvTppZeDbAkIWG6B5QZVk2AAblKWL5gB8etZPL-U-gKpxv0eX_S_40A_aem_cZbI2ZmbmOj0jtZit4-NAg

https://digitalchicagohistory.org/exhibits/show/fred-hampton-50th/the-assassination?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=3632

https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/law/mulford-act

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/nation/immigration-agents-become-increasingly-aggressive-in-chicago

https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=lacs_fac_scholar

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/movies/2021/02/13/judas-and-black-messiah-fact-check-was-fred-hampton-drugged/4390689001/

H-Hey guys 😅 I know, I know…it has been a REALLY long time, and on top of that I keep finding more things to add to 'The Many Faces of Patriarchy' witch hunt series that I've been working on here most recently (possibly to some of your dismays)! I hope you all don't mind my side quests..after all, colonialism, authoritarianism, misogyny…they all come from the same place. I just can't stop seeing how MUCH history rhymes.

Last episode, we left off at the lavender scare, with promises for this episode to deliver the so-called "black scare"…to which I am delivering (a part of, as you can see by the 4.a, because I plan to get 4.b out within the week-I PROMISE! It's already nearly done!).

In this episode, we begin by tying the present political violence of America to it's past, which includes the June 2025 assination of democratic lawmaker Melissa Hortman. We then enter into the main part of the episode: the creation of the Counter Intelligence Program. We find that Hoover is up to his old tricks again, including surveillance & illegal operations..but this time he kicks it up a notch, with help from his FBI. Yep, he's getting the band back together, meaning he is widening his sights to include groups considered “other” from parts 1, 2, and 3 of this series.

That's right, Hoover's COINTELPRO begins by aiming to further oppress so-called communists & socialists (surprise!), people of color, feminists, Native Americans, AND MORE. Basically, anyone demanding equal rights.This episode will mainly focus on cointelpro's attack on Martin Luther King Jr.

So let's take a little trip into the past, so we can better connect the reasons of how tf we got where we are today. I guess some people think it's boring to learn from history's most horrendous mistakes…

socials:

www.instagram.com/g.i.t.s.podcast

www.tiktok.com/@greatinthesackpodcast

www.tiktok.com/@neurodivergentfeminist

www.bsky.app/profile/greatinthesackpod.bsky.social

Sources:

https://www.britannica.com/topic/Black-Panther-Party

https://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/disp_textbook.cfm?smtID=3&psid=3632

https://www.history.com/articles/martin-luther-king-jr-fbi-j-edgar-hoover-communism

https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/federal-bureau-investigation-fbi

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fifth%20column#:~:text=lum%5C%20%E2%80%A2%20noun-,:%20a%20group%20of%20secret%20sympathizers%20or%20supporters%20of%20an%20enemy,unjustly%20blacklisted%20as%20Communist%20sympathizers

https://www.mprnews.org/story/2025/06/17/the-timeline-of-events-leading-up-to-and-following-boelters-attacks

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/12/us/politics/charlie-kirk-shooting-firings-celebration.html

https://scholarsarchive.library.albany.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=lacs_fac_scholar

This week on Great in the Sack: When Misogyny Leads to Mayhem, we unpack a revolution born not in peace, but in the wreckage of war—where colonial borders, religious authoritarianism, and patriarchal power all collided. And somehow, out of that fire, a feminist experiment began to breathe.

Welcome to Rojava—northeastern Syria—where Kurdish women took up arms against ISIS...& began rewriting society itself.

Drawing from the radical philosophy of Abdullah Öcalan, a former Marxist turned jailed Kurdish thinker, Rojava’s political model—democratic confederalism—is a bold rejection of both Western imperialism and religious authoritarianism. Here, power is decentralized. Ethnic divisions are challenged. And women? They are co-chairs, commanders, lawmakers, and rebels. Every council is led by one man and one woman. Every major decision is filtered through a lens of gender equality.

But this revolution didn’t just spring up—it’s a direct response to decades of betrayal. Colonial legacies carved up Kurdistan, denying the Kurds a homeland and pushing them into the margins of nation-states that treated them as problems to be solved—or erased. Add to that the rise of armed Islamist groups enforcing Sharia law with an iron fist, and you get the perfect storm for radical, necessary reinvention.

We explore the tension between Islamic fundamentalism and female autonomy, how the Rojava model challenges both capitalist modernity and sectarian domination, and why this revolution—still under siege from every direction—may be one of the most important feminist stories of the 21st century.

Red Crescent Rojava: https://hskurd.org/en/

Emergency aide for Rojava:

https://heyvasor.com/en/2024/12/03/emergency-aid-for-rojava/#pll_switcher

instagram.com/@greatinthesacktruecrimepodcast

tiktok.com/greatinthesackpodcast

greatinthesackpodcast@gmail.com

show notes:

https://www.hrw.org/report/2009/11/26/group-denial/repression-kurdish-political-and-cultural-rights-syria?utm_

Conflict Between Turkey and Armed Kurdish Groups | Global Conflict Tracker

https://hawarnews.com/en/mother-of-martyr-hevrin-khalaf-my-daughters-killers-are-stillroaming-free

https://youtu.be/cMfJRnWu52Y

Wayback Machine

Timeline: The Kurds’ Long Struggle With Statelessness

https://nypost.com/2024/03/30/long-mistreated-by-iraq-the-kurds-need-americas-attention-now/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

Turkey: Facing a New Millennium: Coping With Intertwined Conflicts, Amikam Nachmani, p. 210, 2003

Turkey Claims That Syria's Kurds Are Terrorists. Should Anyone Believe Them?

The Kurdistan Memory Programme

D'Alema: Abdullah Öcalan is right. Solving the Kurdish question is crucial for peace in the Middle East - The Kurdish Center for Studies

Episode 7 – Inceldom Explained: The Case of Tres Genco

**CONTENT WARNING** DISCUSSIONS OF SELF EXIT, AND MASS SHOOTINGS-USE DISCRETION WHERE AND WHEN YOU LISTEN.

A growing subculture of disaffected men has turned their anger into a violent ideology. Incels—short for “involuntary celibates”—believe they are entitled to sex and that women, and society at large, are to blame for their isolation. While many incels remain behind keyboards, some take their hatred into the real world.

Tres Genco was one of them. Inspired by past attacks, he stockpiled weapons, wrote a manifesto detailing his violent fantasies, and planned a mass shooting targeting women. He was caught before he could act, sentenced, released… and then arrested again. His case would reveal the dangerous escalation of his own inceldom- from an online OBSESSION to real-world violence.

In this episode, we’ll break down Genco’s crimes, the psychological and social factors that drive incels toward extremism, and the triad of risk factors that can help identify when someone is on the path to radicalization.

Show notes/sources:

Office of Public Affairs | Ohio Man Pleads Guilty to Attempting Hate Crime | United States Department of Justice

Office of Public Affairs | Ohio Man Charged with Hate Crime Related to Plot to Conduct Mass Shooting of Women, Illegal Possession of Machine Gun | United States Department of Justice

Parental Investment Theory (Chapter 7) - The Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Sexual Psychology

Ohio 'incel' who plotted to kill women at college is sentenced to 6 years in prison

Intervening in Problematic Research Approaches to Incel Violence, Men and Masculinities | 10.1177/1097184x231200825 | DeepDyve

Self-described Ohio 'incel' sentenced to 6 years behind bars after planning to kill sorority girls in manifesto | Blaze Media

Interviewing I*cel Expert William Costello

The Truth About Incels | Novara Media

Incel Convicted For Planning Attack | Dangers of Unwanted Celibacy | Tres Genco Case Analysis

The woman who founded the 'incel' movement

Incels, violence and mental disorder: a narrative review with recommendations for best practice in risk assessment and clinical intervention | BJPsych Advances | Cambridge Core

United States v. Genco, 584 F. Supp. 3d 515 | Casetext Search + Citator