In 2017 historian Per Faxneld published the landmark study Satanic Feminism: Lucifer as the Liberator of Woman in Nineteenth-Century Culture. The book argues for the existence of a nineteenth-century counter-reading of Satan that constructed the Devil as a symbol of women's liberation, progressive values, and intellectual freedom. For nineteenth- and early twentieth-century suffragists, artists, and radical thinkers, Satan served as an empowering model of self-determination and nonconformity. This collection seeks to build on the work of Faxneld and other scholars of the Satanic by mapping some of how Satanism has been employed as a lens through which to explore issues related to gender, sexuality, and feminist activism in twentieth- and twenty-first-century popular culture.
In the twentieth century, Satanism flourished as part of 1960s and 1970s popular Occulture, moving from real-life satanic organisations like the Church of Satan (founded in 1966) to sensationalist portrayals in films like Rosemary's Baby (1968) and The Exorcist (1973). In both its real-world and fictional incarnations, Satanism often collided with issues central to the women's movement: reproductive rights, bodily autonomy, sexual freedom, and gender-based violence. Satan also served as a symbol of women's liberation in many texts of this period, with films like Black Sunday (1960), Don't Deliver Us from Evil (1971), The Blood on Satan's Claw (1971), and Alucarda (1977) portraying Satanic women as alluring, even empowering, figures. Now, in the twenty-first century, Satanism retains its complex imbrication with feminist discourse and activism. Organisations like the Satanic Temple (founded in 2012) utilise Satanic iconography in campaigns for reproductive justice and LGBTQ+ rights. Around the same time, a new wave of films and television shows utilised Satanic ideas and iconography to explore feminist themes.
