Gender balance/strong women

[love2write_11098 at yahoo.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 14783

> Also, every DADA teacher (so far) has been male.

But she's said that there WILL be a female one.
 
> I sympathize with JKR, who bristled a little at the suggestion that 
> she doesn't have enough women/girls, because, as she said, there 
are 
> other characters to come, but for her to say the staff is 50/50 is 
a 
> bit beside the point.  Look at the most important characters, 
amongst 
> students, staff, and elsewhere; they are almost all male.  Going by 
> pure screen time, Hogwarts is a man's world.  Trelawney helped 
right 
> the balance, as did Rita, but please--these are our female role 
> models?  (Maybe Trelawney will be redeemed when we learn about the 
1st 
> True Prophecy.)

Oh dear. I have to drag the soapbox out for this. I think people make 
far, far too much of this, and they also don't appreciate the really 
neat female characters we have already.

McGonagall is a very strong woman, and quite a good role model, I 
think. She's a bit strict, but a good role model. Sprout -- though 
she doesn't get much ink -- is a bit warmer. And Hermione is a strong 
woman in her own right -- she's really indispensible to Ron and 
Harry, they wouldn't get very far without her and her trips to the 
library. I always get a bit ticked every time I run across some 
newspaper article: "No strong female characters in Harry Potter . . . 
All Hermione's good at is school . . . Blah blah blah."

Well, excuse me. About all I'm good at is school, too. Does this mean 
that if I'm not a straight A student AND a basketball all star, I 
can't be a strong woman? I hate the implications of that kind of 
article. Also, women ARE shown to be good at both sports and school. 
Of the Quidditch teams, only Slytherin has no girls (as JKR 
specifically pointed out in CoS).

*sigh* I'm sure this has been done to death, but I just had to say it.

Stacy (getting off her soapbox now)