Karly

We are easing into October, and this post nearly didn’t make the final schedule, but I think it’s a perfect way to transition from September to the month of spooky things. Enjoy!

There is a long and bitter history of women being punished not for what they did, but for what they said. Sometimes it was for saying too much, or too soon, or too clearly, or too loudly. Sometimes it was for asking questions, for naming what others refused to see, for speaking when silence was more convenient. Sometimes it was for using the wrong tone, the wrong words, the wrong kind of certainty. And sometimes, it was simply for refusing to shut up.

In the European witch trials and their colonial copies, the accusations often came down to language. A woman might have cursed a neighbour. She might have muttered under her breath. She might have spoken to her cat like it was a person or made a sharp remark during a dispute or whispered something that later, by sheer coincidence or malice, seemed to come true. These weren’t spells, not really. Often they were just sentences. Fragments of ordinary speech, later interpreted as evidence once the woman herself had already been framed as suspicious. A woman did not need to cast a spell to be called a witch. She only had to be heard.

Because the real fear was never just magic. It was language. It was the knowledge that words, once spoken, could change things. That naming an injustice could make it real. That saying something out loud might force someone to listen. The fear was that a woman might say something true and that someone else might believe her.

Cassandra Knew, and They Killed Her Anyway

In Taylor Swift’s Cassandra, that fear becomes poetry. The ancient myth of the girl who was cursed to speak the truth and never be believed is reimagined as something painfully contemporary. The song’s speaker is not a mystic oracle in a temple, she is a woman in a new house, patching up a crack along the wall, remembering the moment her life began to unravel. She tells the town what she sees. She sounds the alarm. She points to the fire. And for that, she is mocked, imprisoned, destroyed, and ignored. “They killed Cassandra first,” she says, “because she feared the worst and tried to tell the town.” The punishment for her foresight was not disbelief alone. It was punishment. And when the truth finally came out, when everything she warned about was proven real, no one said a word.

“When the truth comes out, it’s quiet,” Swift sings, and there are few lines more accurate than that. Because women who are punished for speaking do not always get apologies when they are later proven right. They get silence. They get buried. They get erased.

The story of Cassandra has always been a linguistic tragedy. It is about what happens when a woman’s words are true but inconvenient, accurate but unwelcome, urgent but dismissed. In some versions of the myth, Cassandra is seen as mad. In others, she is ridiculed. In all of them, she is correct. And in Swift’s version, the silence that follows her prophecy is not peace. It is a sentence.

“I Did Something Bad” and the Price of Female Power

While Cassandra mourns what was lost, I Did Something Bad snarls back. Released in 2017 during a very different phase of Swift’s public narrative, the song is pure defiance. “They say I did something bad, then why does it feel so good?” she asks, not as an apology but as a provocation. This is a song that understands the witch trials not as history, but as a metaphor. This is not Cassandra in her tower. This is the witch at the stake, watching the crowd cheer as the flames rise, refusing to look away.

It is a song about what happens when a woman refuses to soften, refuses to apologise, refuses to explain herself for the comfort of those who would burn her anyway. She does something bad, and then she does it again. Because if the punishment is the same no matter what, if you will be called a liar, a bitch, a snake, a whore, a monster, then you might as well be free.

“I never trust a narcissist, but they love me,” she sings, and the line is not just a personal dig, it is a political truth. It speaks to the systems that praise women for being palatable and punish them the moment they push back. It speaks to the fear that female power must be contained, and when it cannot be, it must be framed as evil.

I Did Something Bad is not about guilt. It is about narrative. It is about who gets to tell the story. It is about the satisfaction of being right, even when that righteousness gets you killed.

Linguistic Double Binds and the Witch Who Talks Too Much

This is where linguistics comes in, not just as a field but as a frame. Because women have always existed in a double bind. Speak softly and you are dismissed. Speak boldly and you are disliked. Speak at all and someone will wonder what gives you the right.

Sociolinguistic studies show that women are conditioned to hedge, to apologise, to soften their critiques with just and maybe and I don’t know. We are trained to use indirect speech, to prioritise politeness, to make ourselves small in conversation. These are not style choices. These are safety measures.

When a woman breaks that pattern, when she speaks directly, forcefully, unapologetically, her language becomes suspicious. A raised voice becomes aggression. A clear opinion becomes arrogance. A refusal to smile becomes a threat. And when that woman also happens to be right, it is rarely celebrated. It is often punished.

Witchcraft, in many cases, was simply a name given to the kind of woman who did not care if you found her threatening. And that kind of woman is still hard to swallow.

We Do Not Burn Witches Anymore, We Just Find Other Ways

Today, women are not dragged to the stake, but they are still called crazy. Still called liars. Still called too loud, too much, too sensitive, too angry. They are still told to smile. To calm down. To stop being dramatic. To lower their voice. To change their tone. To say it differently, or not at all.

Online, women who speak about injustice are mocked, harassed, and threatened. In professional settings, their tone is policed more than their content. In media, they are portrayed as unstable. On stage, they are vilified for the same traits that earn men applause. And when they are finally proven right, it is quiet.

There is no apology for Cassandra. There is no applause for the girl who did something bad.

There is only the knowledge that she was right all along.

Final Spell

This post is not a curse. It is a reminder.

That language is power. That naming something is an act of resistance. That truth, even when ignored, still leaves an echo. That girls who speak too much are not a problem. They are a prophecy.

So here’s to the Cassandras. The witches. The angry women. The ones who warned the town. The ones who refused to lie. The ones who laughed at the fire. The ones who wrote it down. The ones who did something bad, and then did it again. The ones who were right.

Not monsters. Not demons. Not ghosts.

Just women with words.

And that has always been terrifying to someone.