Let's All Blame the Witches

As in most of history, men, at this time, believed [wrongly] that they were superior to women in every way, from intelligence to morality to strength. 

Strong religious fervor as a result of the Reformation and consequential devastating religious wars incited the leaders of the time to search for a scapegoat for the economic and social problems that resulted from these wars.  Powerful European men tend to find scapegoats for social and economic issues of their times---note Hitler blaming the Jews for the economic issues following World War I. The leaders in the 1500s blamed women who they deemed witches. 

According to Chief Justice Coke of England, "a witch was one who hath conference with the devil to consult with him or to do some act" (514). The women who fell under this category tended to be widows or women who had never been married between 50 and 70 years old, were crippled, and often practiced medicine or midwifery. They also tended to have "sharp tongues and were quick to scold". 

Many of these widowed women inherited land, and this was intimidating to men. Additionally, both widows and women who had never been married were not under the supervision of men and were therefore "suspect" because "men were superior to women".  This is combination with a history of misogyny in the Church caused the witch hunts, in which between 50,000 and 100,000 women were executed during the 16th and 17th centuries. 

In summary, the witch hunts occurred because Europeans sought a scapegoat for all of the devastation caused by the religious wars. Because of men's predisposed hatred of women, they were able to justify executing women who were "socially marginal", and, therefore, influenced by the

 Devil. 

The hunts were, at their core, an exposition of men's hatred of human women because, regardless of what's on American Horror Story, witches do not exist.