The witch hunt as a means of enforcing female subservience in the context of an emergent capitalism is a just-so story that is driven more by a desire to demonize capitalism than anything else.

Gender roles have remained pretty static throughout European history so it doesn't make sense to pin down witch paranoia on a changing of gender roles or attitudes that never changed in the first place.

The better explanation is the one offered by the OP, that a pre-existing desire by religious authorities to root out heresy found fertile ground in the fervor of the reformation era. The result was witch hysteria.