Witch Power: Hexing the Patriarchy with Feminist Magic

by Emma Quilty

When most people hear the word 'witch', they immediately think of crones conspiring over a cauldron, a force of dark and vindictive power. But to hundreds of thousands across the world, being a witch is a living, everyday reality, much more varied than the fairytale image.

Witch Power follows Emma Quilty – herself a witch and an anthropologist – on an immersive journey into contemporary witchcraft, from Witchcamp retreats to 'red tent' menstrual events, Voodoo priestesses running ghost tours from their vans to TikTokers casting hexes on a viral scale.

Attentive to the history of witchcraft, she reveals the role power plays in how the figure of the witch has changed over time to suit the ever-present need to control and demonize women. Because to be a witch is to live in defiance of society's expectations and rules.

But while the witch is always castigated as a threat, Quilty finds that the witch is never the witch is a survivor and a symbol of resistance. Ultimately, Witch Power is a provocation and an invitation to readers to experience with the author what it means to embrace witchiness and what witchy feminism could bring to your life.

Genres: Nonfiction

208 pages, Hardcover

Published September 15, 2025

About the author

Emma Quilty is a social anthropologist who works in the field of feminist science and technology studies. Her research investigates the shifting practices of algorithmic harm and gender violence, and how they are facilitated by digital infrastructures and emerging systems like artificial intelligence. She is currently a research fellow in the ARC Centre for Excellence for The Elimination of Violence Against Women based at Monash University.

Her research has helped establish new ways of understanding how technologies shape gendered experiences of power, violence and inequality, extending analysis beyond individual technologies to the broader social, cultural and political systems in which they operate. By foregrounding the lived experiences of people affected by digital technologies, Quilty’s work has reshaped our understanding of how algorithmic systems reproduce inequality and how more just technological futures might be imagined.

Her books Can We Trust Technology? (co-authored with Sarah Pink, Routledge) and Witch Power: Hexing the Patriarchy with Feminist Magic (Polity) have made significant contributions to debates on technology, gender and social change. By foregrounding the lived experiences of people affected by digital technologies, Quilty’s work has reshaped our understanding of how algorithmic systems reproduce inequality and how more just technological futures might be imagined.

Reviews

[Adaeze Chi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

I appreciate the work Emma put into this book, however I feel like I was wanting a little bit more from it. A grittier deeper unpacking of witchcraft and feminism perhaps, especially from the perspective of an anthropologist witch which is super interesting!

Despite the criticisms that Emma was making regarding white feminism/white witchcraft, I do feel like a lot of the information in this book was centred around white feminism. I would’ve loved to have read more about the voodoo in New Orleans rather than just the brief chapter, and maybe more about Emma’s Fijian-Indian roots herself and how that plays into her version of feminism and witchcraft as a mixed race woman.

I am keen to see how Emma grows as an author and I’m excited to see her really unpack and get into the nitty gritty of whichever topic her subsequent books will be on!

[Faith Steele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Emma Quilty’s “Witch Power” is Eat,Pray, Love, for witches.

A truly beautiful, transformative, powerful, deep exploration of not only the history of witchcraft and magic but of sexism, misogyny, racism and the oppression of woman.

It is also a journey of girlhood, belonging, kinship, identity and letting go of what no longer serves you.

I loved every minute of this book, it even brought me to tears. Beautifully crafted!! Well done Emma ✨

Some highlights —

“Women's bodies belong to themselves alone; no spiritual authority will back a man's attempt to possess or control her.”

“Of all the female sins, hunger is the least forgivable; hunger for anything, for food, sex, power, education, even love. If we have desires, we are expected to conceal them, to control them, to keep ourselves in check. We are supposed to be objects of desire, not desiring beings.”

“There is certainly an appealing and almost romanticized quality to this tale, that once upon a time women weren't oppressed and nature was sacred. Then came the big three C's: colonialism and capitalism and Christianity fucked it all up.”

“I’m afraid to stop because when I do I have to deal with the fact it's over. He doesn't love me anymore, and after everything he told me no one ever will. I'm too needy. Too horny. Too slutty. Too talkative. Too much full stop. I'm not just scared of being alone, I'm scared no one will ever love me. The real me, not the version I cut myself down into just to please him.”

“I had finally done it, admitting to myself what I was really scared of: on the one hand, I was grieving the loss of the relationship but, on the other, I was also grieving the loss of my identity. The one I had wrapped around him, in having a partner and therefore being valued. For me, being with someone made me someone. Never mind how that person treated me or made me feel about myself.”


“This was the perfect liminal space to allow this part of myself, my identity, to (symbolically) die. It was time, time to forgive myself for giving away the pieces of myself over the years. It was also time to go get those pieces back and love them as much as I deserved to be loved. An important part of this forgiveness involved allowing myself to feel angry, white hot rage coursing through my body.”

[Kayleigh · Rating 2 out of 5]

Unfortunately, a lot of this was very high level information and while you could tell that Quilty put the work in to her research, it didn’t resonate throughout the whole book.

Quilty spent a lot of bandwidth condemning white witchcraft or white feminism and yet a lot of the book continued to center around it. I’m not sure if that’s due to a lack of other information or just being the most available. I would have liked to see more of an emphasis on diversity.

The authors tone and pace throughout the book was pretty inconsistent and caused a lot of lagging points throughout the book.

I think the author has a lot of potential and I’m looking forward to seeing what they come out with in the future.

[Amra Pajalic · Rating 5 out of 5]

I met Emma at an event where she read an extract of her book and was immediately intrigued. I knew I wanted to buy her book for my daughter, and after she read it, she urged me to read it.

I loved this interrogation of witches in society, and her search to reclaim her power and find herself both as a woman and as a witch. I also loved the analysis of how the witch is used in society as a way of subjugating and controlling women and that "To reclaim the witch means to cry out against sexism and misogyny." p. 157

A very worthwhile read.

[Kayla Carrea · Rating 5 out of 5]

a combination of witchcraft and feminism SAY LESSS🕯️🔮🦇🥀 (actually say more i loved every second🙂‍↕️🙂‍↕️)

[K · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5