”Great in the Sack”: When Misogyny Leads to Mayhem

It's PRIDE MONTH! In pt. 3 of "Witch hunts never go out of style: the many faces of patriarchy", we explore the history and impact of the First and Second Red Scares, alongside the lesser-known but deeply more consequential Lavender Scare. Through a feminist lens, we will take a look at how anti-Communist and anti-LGBTQ campaigns intersected with broader patterns of state surveillance, moral panic, and social control in mid-20th century America. The episode traces how these government-led efforts affected not only political dissenters and artists but also disproportionately targeted queer individuals and other marginalized groups, such as people of color. The next episode will feature the black scare, AKA cointelpro-I didn't want to cram it into this episode, because I wanted to make sure to spend enough time on each of these damaging, tragic moral panics which were waged against those who were seen as "other", or deemed less than.
     While primarily historical in focus, the discussion draws brief parallels to contemporary dynamics of power, identity, and civil liberties.
 
Show Notes:
 
Kady Grass' gofundme:
https://www.gofundme.com/f/support-kady-grass-after-brutal-attack 
 
The Trevor Project is the leading suicide prevention and crisis intervention nonprofit organization for LGBTQ+ young people. They provide information & support to LGBTQ+ young people 24/7, all year round.
https://www.thetrevorproject.org/ 
 
ILGA World, the International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, and Intersex Association:
https://ilga.org/ 
 
Rainbow Railroad helps at-risk LGBTQI+ people get to safety.
https://www.rainbowrailroad.org/ 
 
 
socials:
greatinthesackpodcast@gmail.com
ig: @g.i.t.s.podcast
tiktok: @greatinthesackpodcast
tiktok: @neurodivergentfeminist
 
Sources:
https://www.universityarchives.com/auction-lot/j.-edgar-hoover-tls-on-joseph-mccarthy-a-hero-va_AEE482F9F9?utm 
 
archivesfoundation.org+5nglcc.org+5nps.gov+5them.us. 
 
https://time.com/6697055/welfare-queen-stereotype-origins/ 
 
https://abcnews.go.com/US/suspects-allegedly-attacked-woman-mcdonalds-sexual-orientation-face/story?id=122274998 
 
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/international-review-of-social-history/article/james-a-baer-anarchist-immigrants-in-spain-and-argentina-university-of-illinois-press-urbana-il-etc-2015-xviii-240-pp-ill-5500-travis-tomchuk-transnational-radicals-italian-anarchists-in-canada-and-the-us-19151940-university-of-manitoba-press-winnipeg2015-xi-260-pp-ill-2795-epub-ebook-2000-pdf-ebook-2000-kenyon-zimmer-immigrants-against-the-state-yiddish-and-italian-anarchism-in-america-the-working-class-in-american-history-university-of-illinois-press-urbana-etc-2015-x-300-pp-ill-9500-paper-3000/09E310DFA917DC6A84668205FDEB9BA2 
 
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Palmer-Raids 
 
https://web.archive.org/web/20110719193328/http://comptalk.fiu.edu/blacklist.htm 
 
https://guides.library.illinoisstate.edu/c.php?g=1173721&p=8576276 
 
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Karl-Marx 
 
https://au.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-lists/50-worst-decisions-movie-history-list-50256/ronald-reagan-tells-the-house-un-american-activities-committee-that-the-screen-actors-guild-is-full-of-communists-50298/ 
 
https://levin-center.org/joe-mccarthys-oversight-abuses/ 
 
https://www.ebsco.com/research-starters/history/analysis-testimony-j-edgar-hoover-house-un-american-activities-committee#:~:text=The%20context%20of%20his%20testimony,tumultuous%20period%20in%20American%20history. 
 
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/lavender-scare.htm?utm_source 
 
https://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/document.php?id=cqal54-1358787#:~:text=On%20May%204%20McCarthy%20offered,FBI%20memo%2C%20on%20security%20grounds. 
https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/mattachine-society.htm#:~:text=The%20Mattachine%20Society%20set%20the,who%20were%20arrested%5B2%5D.

In Part 2 of our series on witch hunts and patriarchy, we pick up at the decline of the European witch trials..starting with the end of the English (Anglican) prosecutions and moving through the infamous hysteria in Salem. From there, we explore how the so-called Enlightenment ushered in new systems of control under the guise of reason and progress.
If this era was truly "enlightened," why did the transatlantic slave trade not only continue, but expand? This episode asks what we choose to see as civilized—and what, or who, we are willing to sacrifice to maintain that image.
We then trace the enduring legacy of accusation, punishment, and control into colonial Africa, where European powers exported witchcraft panic as part of their imperial toolkit. From there, we transition into the rise of modern medicine and the medicalization of women’s bodies...where midwives and healers were replaced by male-dominated institutions, and into the development of eugenics as a tool to justify social hierarchies and racial "purity."
We end with the Nazi regime’s calculated use of ableism, psuedoscience and gendered violence to define who was worthy of life, & who was not.
This episode connects centuries of persecution, "progress," and power, revealing how patriarchal systems evolve, but never disappear.In part 3 (and quite possibly part 4), we will be starting with the McCarthy era, including the Lavender Scare, up through the "crack-baby" myth and the Welfare Queen trope, to the current status of the DEI pushback...worldwide, not just in the United States.
greatinthesack@gmail.com
www.instagram.com/@g.i.t.s.podcast 
www.tiktok.com/greatinthesackpodcast
www.tiktok.com/neurodivergentfeminist 
 
Equal Justice Initiative: https://eji.org/ 
 
https://www.dw.com/en/women-as-spoils-of-war-at-the-end-of-world-war-ii/video-69022168 
 
https://eji.org/report/transatlantic-slave-trade/ 
 
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/04/17/603163394/-father-of-gynecology-who-experimented-on-slaves-no-longer-on-pedestal-in-nyc 
 
https://www.researchwithrutgers.com/en/publications/reassessing-eugenic-sterilization-the-case-of-north-carolina 
 
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-13700490 
 
https://www.britannica.com/search?query=eugenics 
 
https://practitioners.exeter.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Eastanglianwitchtrialappendix2.pdf 
 
https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-family/rosemary-kennedy 
 
https://www.discovermagazine.com/the-sciences/the-man-who-found-that-genes-hold-culture-on-a-leash 
 
https://salem.lib.virginia.edu/d1e304.html 
 
https://oxfordre.com/africanhistory/display/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-441?p=emailAeg10H8z/RsN6&d=/10.1093/acrefore/9780190277734.001.0001/acrefore-9780190277734-e-441 
 
https://19thnews.org/2022/02/forced-sterilization-guardianship-reproductive-justice/ 
 
 Lombardo, Paul, Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court and Buck v. Bell, (2008)

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
 
 

This week on Great in the Sack: When Misogyny Leads to Mayhem, we unpack a revolution born in the wreckage of war...where colonial borders, religious authoritarianism, and patriarchal power COLLIDE! And when these power COMBINE..sorry, almost did the beginning to Captain Planet. Anyway, somehow out of that collision, a feminist experiment began to breathe.
Welcome to Rojava, up in the northeastern part of Syria, where TONS of Kurdish women took up arms against ISIS...risking their lives to basically keep the rest of the country..even the rest of the world safe.
They were a group of soldiers formed out of the radical philosophy of Abdullah Öcalan, a former Marxist turned jailed Kurdish thinker. Rojava’s political model, democratic confederalism, is a rejection of both Western imperialism and religious authoritarianism. Power is decentralized. Ethnic divisions are challenged. And women 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 is a direct response to decades of betrayal. Colonialists carved up Kurdistan, denying the Kurds a homeland and pushing them into the margins of nation-states that treated them as problems. Add to that the rise of armed Islamist groups enforcing Sharia law with an iron fist, and you get the perfect storm for what is to come in this episode.
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 very much under siege from every which way but loose, 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  

In this episode, we track the rise of Phyllis Schlafly-—the woman who weaponized housewife aesthetics and femininity to bulldoze the Equal Rights Amendment and hand America the long-term consequences we're still living through, and we will discuss a bit of that 2nd wave feminism.
We follow the feminist heroes of the early 1970s—Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, Brenda Feigen, Shirley Chisholm, and others—as they fought tooth and nail for the ERA, only to be blindsided by Schlafly’s grift in pearls: STOP ERA. You’ll hear how Schlafly mobilized fear, fundamentalism, and good old-fashioned misogyny to convince women they didn’t need rights—just a pie in the oven and a man in charge.
We head into the chaos of the 1977 National Women’s Conference in Houston—slaps, slogans, and sabotage—before pivoting to Reagan’s rise, the GOP’s courtship of the religious right, and how Schlafly helped lay the groundwork for Trumpism.
We’ll show how Schlafly’s fingerprints are all over today’s anti-abortion fanaticism, with stories like that of Selena Maria from Tifton, GA—a terrifying reminder of what happens when women’s healthcare becomes collateral in a culture war.
But we end with resistance. You’ll hear about state-level ERAs, Senator Gillibrand’s push to make the ERA the 28th Amendment, and what you can do to help.
Because the future of bodily autonomy and equality isn’t dead—it’s just waiting for us to wake the hell up.
 
Show notes/sources:
 
(Selena's go fund me)--> https://gofund.me/69868b43 
 
IG.com/@greatinthesacktruecrimepodcost 
 
greatinthesackpodcast@gmail.com
 
youtube.com/greatinthesacktruecrimepodcast
 
Also follow: IG.com/@abortionfluencer for important activism!
 
 
 
 
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/1977-conference-womens-rights-split-america-two-180962174/?utm_source=chatgpt.com 
 
https://www.latimes.com/local/obituaries/la-me-phyllis-schlafly-snap-story.html 
 
https://journals.openedition.org/rrca/1226?lang=en#tocfrom1n1 
 
https://www.jezebel.com/georgia-police-jailed-woman-for-miscarriage-performed-autopsy-on-miscarried-fetus 
 
https://www.thecut.com/article/why-a-georgia-womans-arrest-after-miscarriage-is-disturbing.html 
 
https://meidasnews.com/news/georgia-woman-arrested-after-disposing-of-miscarriage 
 
https://www.tifton.net/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=151&utm_source=chatgpt.com 
 
https://web.archive.org/web/20150402093633/http://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/pregnancyloss/conditioninfo/Pages/risk.aspx 
 
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/04/01/georgia-woman-miscarriage/ 
 
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2020-04-29/mrs-america-phyllis-schlafly-gay-son-brenda-marc-feigen-fasteau 
 
https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/b7fc60f4-9a5d-449a-858e-67afebd21dcc/content 
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roe_v._Wade#:~:text=On%20January%2022%2C%201973%2C%20the,Texas's%20abortion%20ban%20as%20unconstitutional. 
 
https://www.historyextra.com/period/20th-century/suffragists-suffragettes-difference/ 
 
https://web.archive.org/web/20120214143336/http://www.colorado.edu/AmStudies/lewis/2010/declare.htm 
 
https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/tv/story/2020-05-14/mrs-america-fx-hulu-bella-abzug-margo-martindale 
 
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/phyllis-schlafly?utm_source=chatgpt.com 
 
https://www.nytimes.com/1979/03/23/archives/rights-plan-foes-celebrate-its-difficulties-with-a-gala-award-for.html 
 
https://www.americanprogress.org/article/the-era-solidifies-womens-rights-in-the-constitution-as-the-28th-amendment/ 
 
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/09/phyllis-schlafly-feminist-troll/498737/?utm_source=chatgpt.com 
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/jan/17/joe-biden-equal-rights-amendment?utm_source=chatgpt.com

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  

When 19-year-olds Ayşenur Halil and İkbal Uzuner were murdered by Semih Çelik  in October 2023, the public was left grappling with a question: Was this the act of an incel, a narcissist, a psychopath—or something even more insidious?
In this episode, we break down the disturbing timeline of events, from Semih's growing obsession with İkbal to the deadly deception that led both young women to their tragic fate. We examine the role of misogyny, extremist online communities, and whether incels are truly an isolated group or just a symptom of a much deeper societal disease.
As we analyze CCTV footage, online activity, and Semih's final moments, we ask: Does it really matter what label we give him? Or is the real issue the violent entitlement that keeps claiming women's lives?
Join us as we dissect the psychology, the ideology, and—most importantly—the reality of what happened to Ayşenur and İkbal. Because if we don’t confront the roots of misogyny, the cycle will never stop.
 
ig.com/@great_in_the_sack_podcast
 
greatinthesackpodcast@gmail.com
 
WE WILL STOP FEMICIDE PLATFORM: WE ARE LEARNING, EXPLAINING AND EXTENDING THE STRUGGLE FOR ENGLISH 
 
Anıt Sayaç : Şiddetten Ölen Kadınlar İçin Dijital Anıt 
 
https://balkaninsight.com/2024/10/09/turkey-blocks-access-to-discord-online-platform-citing-child-safety-concerns/ 
 
https://www.haberturk.com/semih-celik-olayi-nedir-cinayeti-neden-isledi-ve-ailesi-kim-ikbal-uzuner-ve-aysenur-halili-katleden-semih-celik-kimdir-3727857/4 
 
https://medyascope.tv/2024/10/08/ikbal-uzuner-ve-aysenur-halili-olduren-semih-celikin-ailesinin-ifadesi-alindi-olay-gunu-neler-yasandi/ 
 
Bates,  Laura, Men Who Hate Women, Laura Bates' Book 'Men Who Hate Women' Exposes Manosphere, World Of Incels : NPR 
 
https://freedomhouse.org/explore-the-map?type=fiw&year=2025  
 
https://www.medipol.edu.tr/en/news/medipol-students-remembered-aysenur-halil  
 
https://www.sabah.com.tr/trend/galeri/yasam/son-dakika-katil-semih-celiki-babasi-anlatti-odasinda-insani-korkutan-seytani-figurler-sabah-tum-detaylara-ulasti  
 
https://t24.com.tr/yazarlar/candan-yildiz/aysenur-halil-in-abileri-konustu-kardesim-icine-kapanik-biriydi-neden-gitti-tehdit-mi-edildi-santaj-mi-yapildi,46675#google_vignette  
 
How One Man got Discord Banned in Turkey... 

This episode features a light conversation about misogyny.