'The world needs more wicked women'

Los Angeles: Hollywood star Angelina Jolie says wicked women are just women who are tired of injustice and abuse, and the world needs more of them.

"What is it about the power of a woman free in mind and body that has been perceived as so dangerous throughout history?," the actor questioned as she started putting her thoughts down, in an essay she penned for Elle magazine's September issue.

"Like the ultimate conspiracy theory, anything you couldn't explain – from a crop failing to a child falling ill – could be put down to the influence of a supposedly wicked woman...

"Women could be accused of witchcraft for having an independent sex life, for speaking their mind on politics or religion, or for dressing differently. Had I lived in earlier times, I could have been burnt at the stake many times over for simply being myself," wrote Jolie, who has portrayed various shades of womanhood in her career.

Women who stand up for human rights in many countries are still labelled 'deviant', 'bad mothers', 'difficult', or 'loose'," the actor writes in the essay. "If that is wickedness, then the world needs more wicked women," said the actor, who added that her essay was not an attempt to dismiss or downplay the terrible abuses against men and boy.