Witches & Bitches: Decades of Women’s Defiance Through the Magnum Archive
In celebration of Women’s History Month 2026, Global Cultural Director Andréa Holzherr sets out to highlight decades of defiant women in the Magnum archive
In Bruce Davidson’s 1963 photograph of a female protester being led by the wrists from a civil rights demonstration in Birmingham, Alabama, the marquee at the cinema behind her promotes a war film that takes on a new meaning: “Damn the Defiant.”
For Women’s History Month 2026, Global Cultural Director Andréa Holzherr explores female defiance over the decades in the Magnum archive, bringing together a selection that reappropriates the derogatory terms branded on outspoken women throughout history — witches and bitches. Turning the shame away from the free-spirited women portrayed in the images, this curation celebrates female autonomy and independence.
Holzherr writes:
“For centuries, women who refused obedience have been given names meant to offend: Witch. Bitch. Words thrown at women who speak too loudly, desire too freely, live too independently, or simply step outside the narrow frame of what is considered acceptable.
Witches & Bitches are daughters, mothers, artists, lovers, fighters, leaders….they choose their own paths, define their own bodies, and invent their own rules.
Witches & Bitches want the same power as their fellow men, they will no longer be just pretty, polite, silent, or pleasing. Their freedom unsettles. Their independence provokes. Their refusal to conform is read as a threat.
Witches & Bitches are simply women who refuse to disappear.”
For more information on this initiative from Magnum’s Cultural team, please contact cultural@magnumphotos.com.
