[HPforGrownups] Re: Gender balance/strong women

[Jen Faulkner]

No: HPFGUIDX 15013

On Fri, 23 Mar 2001, Rina Stewart wrote:

> Jen wrote:
> 
> <<(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.)>>
> 
> Just playing a quick devil's advocate. <g> Ron is defined by his
> relationship to a man, as is Fred and Draco. Sirius and Remus also
> can be, among others. Ron is Harry's friend, Fred is Ron's brother
> and George's twin, Draco is Harry's enemy. Remus can be defined as a
> teacher at Hogwarts, or as James' old friend. Sirius is defined as
> Harry's godfather or James' best friend. So yes, most of the women
> are defined by their relationships to men, but so are men. When I'm
> describing the characters to people who don't know, these are the
> relationships I use.

And the ways you have listed are indeed the easiest and most natural
ways to describe the characters; that's exactly how I would define them,
also.  Not a *single* one of those characters is defined in relation to
a woman.  Draco isn't Hermione's enemy; Remus wasn't Lily's best
friend; Sirius isn't Minerva's godson.  The only relationships that are
important enough to become a defining part of a character are those
between / with men.  

Now, in some sense this focus on male bonds is natural, given that we
have a male protagonist.  Any character defined by a relation to Harry
will of course be defined by a relation to a male.  So the definitions
in relation to Harry don't really 'count' in that sense -- but when we
think of the focus on James instead of Lily for example (we only know
about his exploits at school and his friends; he's the one who protects
Harry in Patronus form -- even though it was Lily who *died* to protect
him before), it isn't quite so inevitable that it should be only
relations with / between men that are emphasized.

(One could also argue that JKR is being an extremely sensitive,
realistic (dare I say mimetic?) author in portraying how a typical
teenaged boy probably would view the world in terms of relations
with/among men.  Women's relationships with other women aren't part of
his natural Weltanschaung, and so JKR has cleverly elided them.  I won't
make that argument, but it could, profitably, be made.)

--jen :)

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