[HPforGrownups] Re: The Female Students (and other female charcters)

[Amanda Lewanski]

No: HPFGUIDX 33295

CAVEAT: I have not been reading this particular thread in detail. A lot
of the feeling in the following has to do with impressions formed from
gender-balance and/or orientation-balance threads from the past. This
should not be construed as a personal criticism if that's not what you
said, okay? Okay.

The first line of this post caught my eye, and I thus respond.

christi0469 wrote:

>  If the female characters in Potterverse have not eveolved by the end
> of the 7th book JKR will have failed to give a gender-balanced
> perspective to the series:

I'm sorry, but this particular looming threat does not greatly disturb
me. Over my eons on the list, I've formed this image of a fictitious (I
*hope* it's fictitious) checklist that authors go down, along the lines
of
    (box)    Male characters are sensititve
    (box)    Female/Male character ratio not too unbalanced
    (box)    As many female as male characters developed and complex
    (box)    As many female as male characters with Importance to the
Plot
    (box)    No portrayal of traditional relationships which might be
construed as critical of untraditional
    (box)    Etc....

Honestly, I don't care what genders the characters are, so long as they
are believable, compelling, and interesting. I don't care what gender of
character furthers the plot, so long as the plot is also believable,
compelling, and interesting. I really, really hope that things like the
gender balance she is portraying are not so close to JKR's mind as what
happens next, and getting it on paper.

What will matter to my daughter, be she ultimately gay or straight, fat
or thin, tall or short, blonde or not, will be how my husband and I
teach her how to perceive herself, much moreso than the gender balance
in the books she reads.

--Amanda, getting rant-y after two Smirnoff Ices and a sinus pill
(yee-haw!)


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