The Female Students (and other female charcters)

[elfundeb]

No: HPFGUIDX 33287

> Do remember, everything we see is from Harry's perspective. With 
the 
> sole exception of Hermione, he pays almost no attention to girls 
> through most of the series so far. And when he does pay attention 
> them, he's mainly noticing their looks. He IS, after all, a boy.

I can accept this as a partial explanation (and a full explanation in 
the case of Cho), but cannot hide my broader disappointment about the 
lack of clues that there are witches out there doing interesting, non-
stereotyped things.  As someone who as a child (more or less pre-
women's lib) was always searching for books that projected positive 
images of women (regardless of the gender of the main character), I 
do feel that HP fails somewhat in this respect to date, with the sole 
exception of Hermione and there are instances where even she behaves 
like a damsel in distress waiting for the boys to come to the rescue 
(most notably the troll scene).
> 
> We haven't seen any female Aurors because, I'm fairly certain, 
we've 
> seen a grand total of ONE Auror. 

We know of two:  Moody and Frank Longbottom (technically, we haven't 
seen either one, because Moody was Crouch).  JKR pointedly doesn't 
say Mrs. Longbottom was an Auror, though she was tortured along with 
her husband so there's no apparent reason to leave her off the list 
of Aurors; it would have been easy for JKR to make the no-prejudice-
against-females point here by simply accusing Crouch Jr. & Co of 
torturing two Aurors with the Cruciatus Curse.  But she doesn't. My 
comment also applies to Death Eaters, who also all appear to be men 
(but that may be Slytherin prejudice; they don't have any female 
Quidditch players either).  

We don't see Ginny playing Quidditch 
> because we don't see much of her at all; Harry doesn't pay her any 
> attention, as he seems to think of her as "Ron's annoying little 
> sister". 

Harry never, to my recollection, indicates that he thinks Ginny is 
annoying, and he does notice her when he's
at the Burrow; otherwise we'd hear nothing about her.  He would 
definitely notice if she came out to play Quidditch with the boys.

I've not seen indication that "every witch devour(s) Witch 
> Weekly", and even if that were the case, we don't know that Witch 
> Weekly is some magical equivilent of Cosmo or whatever.

You're right, "every witch" is an overstatement; Hermione certainly 
doesn't read it.  But I did get the impression that a lot of the 
girls at Hogwarts read it, as do many older witches, such as Mrs. 
Weasley.  And based on the content we've seen in Witch Weekly and 
Rita Skeeter's journalistic standards, I would venture to guess that 
Witch Weekly bears more resemblance to the National Enquirer (trash) 
than Cosmo (merely frivolous). Of course, since Rita also 
writes for the Daily Prophet, I don't get the impression that 
journalism is the strong point of the wizarding world.
> 
> Debbie (who would be pleased to form the Witch Liberation Front at 
Hogwarts)