In a predominantly patriarchal society, European women were not only omitted from most historical narratives, but their experiences were further deemed irrelevant or distortedly presented. Not surprisingly, many seventeenth-century religious views stripped women of their pagan cultural importance, only to have them demonized as witches. Although it has been pointed out that it is an exaggeration to claim that the crime of witchcraft was sex-specific and attributed exclusively to women, the role of gender-based power structures in European witch-hunts remains undeniable and quite convincing. The purpose of this essay is to examine the relationship between gender and witchcraft, as well as the rise of misogyny in early modern Europe. This will be achieved by examining studies of the impact of the witch-hunting treatises of Johannes Nider, Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger, entitled Formicarius and Malleus Maleficarum respectively. Alongside an examination of the question: “what did gender have to do with witch hunts in early modern Europe” arguing that gender and misogyny are important issues in understanding what Barstow calls “sexual terrorism” as I quote – “while witches were almost always women, they were invariably tried, judged, imprisoned, examined and executed by men”. For starters, any discussion of witchcraft must define exactly what a “witch” is, which is quite difficult to do due to her polysomy background. In the early 15th century, the Latin word maleficus was often used by Nider and other authorities in place of witch. Maleficus basically translates to “a person who has performed harmful sorcery” or maleficium. This 'harmful witchcraft' also included 'theft or mu...... middle of paper ...... similar 'rebellious women supposedly guilty of witchcraft', leads the student in the dialogue to exclaim: “I cannot marvel enough how the fragile sex should dare to venture into such presumptions.” He then provides an elucidation of women's inclination to witchcraft, basing his argument on "long-standing Christian conceptions of women's physical, mental, and spiritual weaknesses and their greater susceptibility to the devil's temptations." Nider also believed that women had "the potential for ultimate good, yet when they did not reach this potential, they sunk into the "worst of evils." Both Nider and Kramer in their articles used evidence cited from supposedly authoritative sources for their arguments about the extent of women's inclination to evil. However, these ideas were not new and were in fact borrowed extensively from the tradition of Western misogyny .