[HPforGrownups] Re: Gender balance

[Snuffles MacGoo]

No: HPFGUIDX 14976

Very nice post amy.

storm

-----Original Message-----
From:	Amy Z [SMTP:aiz24 at hotmail.com]
Sent:	Thursday, March 22, 2001 4:32 AM
To:	HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com
Subject:	[HPforGrownups] Re: Gender balance

Stacy said from atop a very nice, top-of-the-line, varnished soapbox:

"No strong female characters in Harry Potter . . . All Hermione's good
at is school . . . Blah blah blah."

Well, articles might say this, but I didn't!  I notice that a few
posts responding to mine point out that there are strong female
characters in HP...giving me the impression that I have disappeared
and been replaced by a Straw Feminist who shouts ridiculous things
like "Hermione is a weakling!  McGonagall doesn't understand
Transfiguration!"  Such a figure would be easy to knock down.

There are *some* strong female characters in Harry Potter.  Hermione
is good at *lots* besides school.  Besides, her being so good at
school is itself against stereotype, especially because we know she
particularly loves Arithmancy, which, whatever it is, is mathematical,
and excels at logic, specifically in contract to the Boy Hero (Snape's
poser in PS/SS, and Harry thinks it again when he comes to the Sphinx
in GoF); both of these are subjects where boys supposedly excel and
girls falter.  Right on, Hermione!  Right on, JKR!

What I am saying is that if you made a list of male and female
characters, you would find that the important characters are very
heavily weighted toward the m side of the list.  I would say that the
six most important characters, going by page time, how well we know
them, and how much we respect/care about them, are (in no particular
order):

Harry
Hermione
Ron
Hagrid
Dumbledore
Sirius

Whether McGonagall would be #7 is arguable.  I'd go with Snape, but it
depends on how much weight you give to page time/importance and how
much to respect/liking.

Ministry officials:  *all* who are named are men (we do encounter
unnamed "ministry witches").

Hogwarts teachers:  the majority are men.  It is *not* 50/50.  Look at
the most important teachers, and the imbalance is worse.

Quidditch players, even on Gryffindor:  the majority are men/boys.  To
JKR's credit, the remark that Slytherin has no girls on its team is a
clear sign that sexism is associated with Pure Evil.  (As it should
be! <g>)

One thing JKR *doesn't* do is make men out to be nicer, better,
smarter, etc. than women.  The men play most of the unflattering
roles, as well as most of the nice ones, and their flaws run the
gamut, from Evil Overlordship to vanity.  JKR's women and girls are
very admirable--at least, as admirable as the men and boys are.  Where
she falls short is in numbers.

Someone did a study some years ago in which they had people read
sections of textbooks and then answer questions about how many of the
examples used were female (e.g. girls' names in word problems, things
like that).  They found that people consistently overestimated the
number of female references.  Make a textbook scrupulously even in its
male and female examples, and readers will perceive it as biased
toward the female.  This is why tokenism works; make one character of
the top six female, and many readers will perceive it as being even.
Make one DADA teacher of 5 female, and many people will perceive that
as even.

Amy Z

------------------------------------------------------
 Feminism:  the radical notion that women are people.
------------------------------------------------------



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