(I) Gynophobia, the fear of women, has had many tragic consequences throughout history. (II) Some of the most frightening were the witch hunts of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in England. (III) Nowadays, most people only associate witches with Halloween. (IV) In these, many innocent women were tortured, hanged, drowned and even burnt at the stake because they refused to falsely confess to witchcraft. (V) It was not until men became better educated that witch hunts were made illegal.