The Female Students (and other female charcters)

[moongirlk]

No: HPFGUIDX 33508

I'll probably regret replying to this before catching up on all the 
posts from the last few days, but I wanted to respond to a few 
things, and darned if I could manage to delay my gratification.

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "judyserenity" <judyshapiro at e...> wrote:
> Mrs. Lestrange seems very interesting.  But, she has been in 
exactly 
> one scene so far. We don't even know her own name (given or 
maiden.)  
> And, her presence at the trial is balanced by the apparent lack of 
> females in the Death Eater circle summoned by Voldy. 

Which brings to mind something positive that JKR has done in respect 
to women.  V discounts them, and quite to his detriment.  

Starting with Lestrange herself, who seems to be quite a character.  
Unrepentant in the face of an angry mob, she's not the least 
concerned that she's had a part in destroying two people so 
thoroughly that they will spend the next decade or so, if not the 
rest of their lives, institutionalized.  She's one of the very few 
DEs who choose to go to Azkaban rather than deny, lie, or scrounge to 
turn in everyone in sight - she is the *only* one so far that has 
openly and defiantly avowed herself to be a DE and a loyal follower 
of V.  In contrast to Crouch Jr., V's pet and "loyal servant", who 
whinged and begged and cried and denied his little heart out on the 
stand, she was amazing.  Perhaps if he'd sought to get her out of 
prison, he'd have had a loyal servant who didn't have the strangely 
counterproductive urge to teach Harry to resist the Imperious 
curse :D I love minor characters!

Second woman he should've given more credit - Lily Potter, of course!
"Step aside woman!" is pretty dismissive.  Too bad he didn't take 
into account her strength, her love, and her determination to protect 
her child.  I'm guessing that in the future this tendency to discount 
the power and importance of women will bite him in his creepy tush.  
I could see that happening with Hermione, McG, Molly... any of 
several women.  Just something that popped into my head.
  

> Trelawney does have a decent amount of lines, although she is is 
quite 
> frivalous.  I do see her as fussy and neurotic, always expecting 
> people to die, afraid to sit at a table with 12 people, etc. 

I have to agree with you there, but then, as a character that nobody 
(meaning the other characters) takes seriously, I think it's ok that 
she's stereotypically flighty and lame.

 I see 
> McGonagall as fussy, too.  McGonagall is the stereotypical prim and 
> proper spinster, hair in a bun, spectacles, and all.  And *she* 
didn't 
> bend the rule about no first years with brooms -- she went to 
> Dumbledore and asked for permission.  

This, I totally don't see.  Yes, she's got the bun and glasses, but I 
think they are there specifically as a foil to her *real* 
personality.  This is a woman who makes fun of other profs in public -
 "Tripe, Sibyl?"/ picking on Lockhart.  And she didn't stop to ask 
Dumbledore's permission before she took a kid who should have been in 
all manner of trouble (remember Harry was afraid that the "Wood" she 
asked for was going to be some sort of paddle), and put him on her 
house's Quidditch team without a detention, or even a talking-to 
about safety, and without making him go to tryouts, or, in fact, 
asking him if he *wanted* to be on the team, that I can recall.  She 
gets very excited (and downright competitive) about sports, she wears 
robes that are at least as interesting and noticeable as Lockhart's, 
which means she doesn't mind being noticed and has some interest in 
her appearance.  She dances and kisses and blushes.  She has tender 
feelings for her students, past and present, she cares about how she 
makes them feel (feeling bad about being hard on Pettigrew).  Her 
animagus form is a cat, which implies all manner of things, but to me 
prim isn't one of them.  This is not your stereotypical strick 
spinster teacher.  

Snape is not strict about rules 
> in the same way that McGonagall is.  He is much more machiavellian 
> (and more interesting), he enforces rules only when it suits his 
> purposes. 

As does McGonagall, as is evidenced above - she didn't do anything to 
punish Harry for the flying incident, because she wanted him on her 
team.

> About my deingrating what the female professors do -- I may have 
> overstated my case, but I was trying to make a point about how JKR 
> presents the female faculty. In other words, *I'm* not trying to 
> denigrate the female faculty, but I think to some extent canon does 
> denigrate them.  

I think things like this have a lot to do with our own personal 
perceptions.  In other words, things may be inferred that were never 
meant to be implied.  For instance...

If what Madame Pomfrey does is so important, why 
> isn't she Dr. Pomfrey? The title of school nurse *implies* someone 
who 
> just fixes sniffles, even though she in fact does much more.  

Why?  I have to say that is an inference, not an implication.  I know 
a lot of nurses (male as well as female, I'd wager) would find this a 
bit offensive.  Nurses *do* far more than fix sniffles - ask one.  
They are medical professionals in their own right, and in places 
where they're the *only* medical professionals, as is the case at 
Hogwarts, they take on all sorts of extra responsibilities.  Most 
schools - and I admit I could be wrong about this as far as British 
boarding schools are concerned - don't have doctors, they have 
nurses.  Hogwarts just happens to have an exceptionally good one, who 
rules her medical wing with an iron fist (kicking out anyone, no 
matter their rank, when she feels it necessary), cures everything 
from sniffles to dragon bites to bone loss to petrification, 
criticizes and praises professors in front of students when she feels 
like it, and has enough feminine wiles left over to make Dumbledore 
blush.  Also, not a stereotypical female.  Did I mention I love minor 
characters?

And by 
> saying that Sprout just "prunes flowers", I mean that she's not 
shown 
> using any real powers of her own. When have we ever seen Sprout do 
> anything magical?  Given what she is shown as doing, she might as 
well 
> be a muggle or a squib working with magical items, like Filch is. 
> (Putting scarves on the mandrakes apparently took some skill, but 
not 
> necessarily magical skill.)  I can't remember a single spell she 
has 
> done. 

Granted, Sprout's not shown to cast any spells, but just because she 
doesn't start off her first class pontificating about the glories of 
what she can do with all of her plants and skills like Snape does 
doesn't mean she can't do it.  In fact, Snape and Pomfrey would be 
hard-pressed to do their jobs, and Lupin as well, if it weren't for 
Sprout's green thumb.  We have evidence that magic is used in wizard 
gardening - Hagrid had to get permission to do an anti-slug charm, 
for example.  So I'd say it's a safe bet that Sprout does, in fact, 
use magic.  It's just not necessary in her classes at this point, and 
she's not been called upon to do magic in any of her scenes so far.  
Snape doesn't use magic in his class either, and out of class he only 
has under extreme circumstances (like the shack) or when required for 
the job (like the dueling club).  As a major character with a lot of 
page time, it's inevitable that he would be shown to use magic more 
than Sprout.  

I agree that there are fewer female characters than male, and that 
they get less page time overall (so far), that's empirically shown, 
but when the quality or strenght of the characters is in question, 
I'd say that much is up to individual perception.  

kimberly

hoping to see Mme Rosmerta hq'ing "the resistence", if things get 
that bad.