[HPforGrownups] Re: Gender balance/strong women

[Jen Faulkner]

No: HPFGUIDX 14994

On Thu, 22 Mar 2001, Sister Mary Lunatic wrote:

> > ..someone do a text analysis about how many lines are 
> > devoted to men and women...)
> 
> It's been done... Go to:
> 
> http://www.hpgalleries.com/wordgallery-c.htm

The site counts number of mentions by name of every character.  To
summarize the results with a focus on gender:

In the top ten, we have numbers 1, 2, and 3 respectively: Harry, Ron,
Hermione.  No other female characters.

In the top twenty, there's Hermione (3), Prof. McGonagall (11).

In the top thirty, there's also Molly (25) and Ginny (29).  (That's
4/30, 13%).

In the top fifty, ther's also Aunt Petunia (31), Prof. Trelawney (40),
Rita Skeeter (45), Madam Pomfrey (46), Moaning Myrtle (48), and Madame
Maxine (50).  (9/50, 18%.)  We're now down to under a hundred mentions
(Ron had almost 3,000, to have a point of comparison).

Just in numbers, that's nothing like 'balance' -- and consider *how*
those nine characters are portrayed.  Aunt Petunia and Rita Skeeter are
very unpleasant; Moaning Myrtle is whiny; Ginny's a victim; Prof.
Trelawney is a flake.  (I don't think that's really oversimplifying
much, except perhaps in Ginny's case.)

Only Profs. McGonagall and Trelawney, Madam Pomfrey, and Rita Skeeter
aren't defined, at least partially, by their relation to a man.  
Hermione is Harry's friend, Molly is Arthur's wife and Ron's mother,
Aunt Petunia is Uncle Vernon's wife and Dudley's mother (and Harry's
aunt, of course), Ginny has a crush on Harry and is saved by him, Madame
Maxine becomes a love-interest for Hagrid, and Myrtle was killed by Tom
Riddle.  (Quickly contrasting the top ten, I would say that Ron, Hagrid,
Dumbledore, Snape, Draco, Sirius, Remus, and Fred are all easily defined
without any relation to a woman.)

Hermione is certainly an exception (Viktor, after all, *would* be
defined by his relation to *her*) in some ways, but she does seem (from
Harry's POV, admittedly) to be very dependant on Harry, and to a lesser
extent Ron; we never see her interacting with any of the girls in her
dorm -- and the things she does do on her own are often overlooked, as
when it took Harry a year to notice the Time-Turner thing!  But, OTOH,
she starts and promotes SPEW pretty much without them.  So, Hermione
I'll grant, but reluctantly.

Madam Pomfrey is mentioned frequently, apparently, though I wouldn't
have guessed that -- presumably because she's always there to 'clean
up', as it were, after others do things (a very typical female reactive
role).

That pretty much leaves my absolute favorite, Prof. McGonagall.  And
speaking of her, Susan wrote:

> For example where are the adult women who could be seen as erotic
> beings? I can IMAGINE Molly in those roles or Minerva..but I have a
> highly developed imagination about women.
> On this list, there are lots of romantic/sexual fantasies about
> Sirius, Lupin, and even Snape, but I haven't seen anyone (male OR
> female) thinking about the women in those terms. (Women, not girls).
> I don't read fan fiction (have read two actually), but I would guess
> that it reflects the characters that people find most powerful and
> who grip the imagination..? Which women are popular in fan fiction?
> Any fan fiction that portrays Minvera as an exciting lover or great
> warrior? (I could see fan fiction perhaps about Hagrid and Madame
> Maxine).

Now, I *adore* Minerva.  (I've mentioned this repeatedly on other lists,
if not here).  She's far and away my favorite character; it's mostly
'cause I find her incredibly sexy.  She's definitely the one character
I'd want to meet... And so immediately canon and fanon collide, since
I'd be hard-pressed to defend that solely from the books (though I think
that's true in some sense of any character in the Potterverse).  But I
think I've had a crush on her since the very first ch. of PS/SS...  I
find her absolutely fascinating.  Her name's Minerva, after all. :)

In terms of fic, other than my own (mostly unposted) Minerva/Lily, I've
only seen three slash fics with her (I couldn't say about het or gen; I
don't read it), a Minerva/Molly, a(n exploitative, probably
male-authored, wholly unrecommended) M/Hermione, and another M/Hermione
(crush fic, no sex, quite sweet and minus the ickiness of the other,
part of a He/Cho anyway).  And in terms of the adults, that's all I can
think of at all.  It tends to be the girls (Hermione, Ginny, Cho, Fleur,
Alicia, Katie, Angelina, Parvati, Padma, and Lily/Narcissa (that last,
mine *g*)) that inspire fic.  For whatever reason, the adult women
aren't appealing.  The vast majority of fics are He/f -- usually He/G or
He/C.  (But there's not exactly a whole lot of HP femmeslash out there.)  
Perhaps either because of the age of the writers or Harry's own age, the
adult females are generally regarded as erotically uninteresting -- and
this by writers who often do write about the adult males, though some
don't (either they only write about the boys, or they only write f/f).  
FWIW.

--jen :)

* * * * * * 
Jen's HP fics:
http://www.eden.rutgers.edu/~jfaulkne/hp.html
Snapeslash listmom: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/snapeslash
Yes, I *am* the Deictrix.