The Female Students (and other female charcters)

[judyserenity]

No: HPFGUIDX 33243

"christi0469" wrote:
>  While I agree that there are not many female characters that could 
> be considered strong in the HP books, I disagree with the 
> characterization of the entire female faculty of Hogwarts as fussy 
> and uptight.... 
> ...Mme Pomfrey does much more than tend to sniffles, 
> she heals broken bones and burns and petrified students(with the 
> help of Sprout and probably Snape). She seems to have a good command 
> of the infirmary, and has the guts to ask Dumbledore to leave. She 
> may only be a nurse, but with nurses like that who needs doctors? 
> And I have never met a school doctor, even in college... And Mme
> Pince is extremely stereotypical of a librarian. 

I think our posts "crossed in cyberspace", so I've already clarified 
my remarks about Sprout, Trelawney, and McGonagall.  

About Pomfrey, you're right that she tells Dumbledore to leave 
(although he mostly just seems to ignore her and stay anyway.)  Every 
college I've been at has lots of doctors in their infirmary, though. 
I'm not familiar with boarding schools, but since no one ever seems to 
get sent elsewhere for treatment, I'd expect Hogwarts' infirmary to 
have a doctor.  And Mme Pince as the stereotypical librarian saying 
"shsssh" all the time is exactly what I dislike about that character. 
 She's nothing like the real librarians in my family.
 

and "christi0469" also wrote:
> I also object to the characterization of Fleur as incompetent.
> When she faces the dragon she does a very good job of entrancing it. 
> ... She starts out competently 
> enough at the second task, only to be caught by grindylows....
> The fact that the goblet of fire chose her at all suggests that she 
is brave and competent.

Well, Fleur came in either 3rd or 4th out of 4 in the dragon task.  As 
for the second task, she failed to deal with grindylows even though 
she was in her 7th year, when the Hogwarts students had no trouble 
with them in their 3rd year. (And Snape said in PoA "I'd expect first 
years to be able to handle grindylows.") We just don't know how she'd 
do in the 3rd task; JKR didn't give her a chance.  As for her being 
picked as Beauxbatons' champion, I had assumed it was because she was 
partly Veela and therefore more magical than the other Beaubatons 
students, who were presumably all-human.  

"pippin_999" wrote:
> JKR, as I've said over on Snapefans, likes to play games with 
> our heads. She does things like underplay the performance of 
> the Irish Chasers, so if you aren't reading carefully, you'll never 
> realize that at least two of them are female, and they *win the 
> game*.

This is the exact sort of tokenism that bothers me.  Ok, she puts two 
women on a winning Quidditch team, but they don't *do* anything 
important.  All the attention is on their male counterpart (Krum.)  
Sure, there are women around in the story, but they aren't the ones 
who make things happen. I really wish Hogwarts was an all-male school; 
then we'd have an excuse *why* there are no women there doing anything 
important.  Instead, the message seems to be that even when women have 
equal opportunity, they just don't stand out.  They don't even stand 
out if they helped found Hogwarts -- I'd like it so much better if 
Hufflepuff had been a man, and Gryffindor or Slytherin had been a 
woman! 

and "pippin_999" also wrote: 
> The concerned parent who, as far as we know, stays home 
> except for charity work, and gets involved in educational issues 
> is...Lucius Malfoy.

Well, Narcissa also stays at home, as far as we know.  And, she also 
cares about education, at least Draco's education.  And heck, Lucius 
doesn't *just* stay home!  He's "always ready to take the lead in a 
spot of muggle torture."  That's an important job! (If you're really, 
really evil.) 

I agree that JKR may have her reasons for any one particular character 
being male, or any one particular female charcters being stereotypical 
or failing at a task.  But, it still adds up to a pattern of very weak 
female characters.  JKR's quite creative, she could have fixed this 
problem if she wanted to. 

I'm surprised that so many people here object to my negative 
descriptions of the female characters in the "Potterverse."  If you're 
defending these characters in order to show that women really aren't 
so fussy, weak, etc., remember that the women in the Potterverse are 
fictional.  I don't see them as anything like the real women that I 
know.  If you are defending these characters because you like them, I 
am surprised.  I really like many of the male characters in the 
stories, but practically none of the female charcters in the 
Potterverse appeal to me much.