Throughout time, witches have represented many things for women - maturity, sexuality, rebirth, revenge and feminism. Witches are characters who often live in a society that oppresses or fears them for their power - they represent how women have struggled to find their place in the male-dominated world and how a woman having such power can be "dangerous." This is not only an occurrence in fiction- it's also reflective of our history. Women with allegedly supernatural powers and not fitting into society were called witches in pre-enlightenment times, prosecuted and often burnt. Modern witches mostly play a divinatory or healing role or simply claim woman's lib. Hollywood for a long time used a male concept of what a witch had to be but this has been changing lately and we now get a female look at extraordinary women.