Logic and math of sexism (was Males are just as silly as females)

[darrin_burnett]

No: HPFGUIDX 41298

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., Amy Z <lupinesque at y...> wrote:
> Darrin, you make lots of good points, and also you're
> defending Hagrid, so I am generously inclined toward
> you.  Howevers follow.


Ditto, my friend, and my howevers are as follows: ;)

> 
> > But I guess my question is, is this necessarily
> > sexist?
> > 
> > Simply having more male important characters than
> > female isn't 
> > sexist, unless you want to implement a literature
> > quota. 
> 
> No, I don't want a quota, and you're right, a book
> doesn't have to be even.  It doesn't even have to be
> close to even.  Where one draws the line is very
> subjective.  I would suggest, however, that if there
> were *no* female characters most of us would wonder
> just a bit about JKR's worldview.  For example, I
> refer you to The Hobbit.  Lovely book, I love JRRT,
> but let's face it, when he wrote that book women were
> just invisible to him and hence absent from the world
> he was creating.  I would grow very uncomfortable if
> my daughter's, or for that matter my son's, entire
> bookshelf presented one woman-free world after
> another.  
> 
> So I look at JKR's choices in HP and think that like
> many of us, when imagining a character who is
> influential, she has her default setting on male.


So far, I'd agree with you. I preface the "so far" because I think 
we're seeing signs of Hermione becoming a "liberal" force in wizard 
politics, Molly being an even stronger character, the introduction 
(or rather re-intro) of Arabella Figg and the promise of Ginny being 
more important.

I'd like to think that as Harry grows older, his world view becomes 
more diverse. In the first two books, gender didn't mean much at all, 
except for Ginny and Hermione's respective crushes on Harry and 
Lockhart, which were -- accurately, I might add -- befuddling to the 
boys. Book 3 gave us the first stirrings of Harry's crush on Cho and 
really gave us more of Hermione's reaction to situations. Book 4 
opened the hormonal floodgates and gave us a character who seemed to 
personify sexual attraction in Fleur.

I submit that Harry and Ron will go through an even more weird stage 
in book 5 when it comes to girls and then be maturing young men in 
the last two books. And when that happens, I think we'll see the 
women in their lives become more important.

>From my point of view, I am stunned and thrilled that a woman is able 
to so accurately nail a young boy's journey through all these 
changes.  


> > So, let's look at positions of power. 
> > 
> > It is true the Ministry is sexist, but the ministry
> > is not exactly 
> > representative of the ideal society, is it? 
> 
> No.  And men in HP have an equal share of
> evil/stupidity--that is, there are *more* evil and
> stupid men than women, but the *proportion* of
> evil/stupid men: good/smart men is about the same as
> that of evil/stupid women: good/smart women.  (By men
> and women I also mean boys and girls, but am using up
> my quota of slashes so will leave it as is.)
> 

Hmmm, so what we have is about an equal number (I'm kind of taking 
your numbers and definitions of evil/stupid at face value) on each 
side and the problem comes back to more men than women, which we 
agree isn't necessarily a bad thing in and of itself.

But let's stop the face value, ok?

Evil women: Rita Skeeter, Pansy Parkison, Aunt Petunia, Aunt Marge.
Stupid: Bertha Jorkins, Trelawney (and she's right sometimes.)

Heroic: McGonagall (so far), Lily, Molly, Ginny, Hermione, Pomphrey, 

No read yet, but have enough page time or importance to count for 
something: Cho, Fleur, Olympe Maxime.

Who else? Please don't call Lavender's gang stupid or evil. They are 
really background characters, no more evil or stupid than the 
Seamus/Dean group. Millicent Bustrode and Narcissa Malfoy and Mrs. 
Lestrange haven't had enough time to really count as evil. 

Compared to all the dunderheaded men, I guess that would be 
proportional. Face value accepted, after closer examination. ;)


> The staff of Hogwarts is where things really start to
> shake out.
> 
> > The Headmaster of Hogwarts is male, but two of the
> > four heads of 
> > houses -- Sprout and McGonagall -- are female and
> > the second-in-
> > command is female. 
> > 
> > Blinns, Hagrid, Snape, Flitwick and the continuous
> > DADAs are male 
> > (for now), but McGonagall, Sprout, Hooch, Sinistra,
> > Vector and 
> > Trelawney are female, so, of the teachers we know --
> > Muggle Studies 
> > and Ancient Runes are as yet unknown -- there are
> > more women than men.
> 
> *IF* you count all four DADA teachers as one.  This is
> what JKR did when she defended herself with the claim
> that the staff at Hogwarts is 50/50, and I thought she
> was pushing it, because the DADA characters are so
> important.  Lupin, though he appears in only one book,
> would be higher on my important-figures list than
> Flitwick; I'd say the same about Moody.
> 

In any given year, there is only one DADA teacher, so I think that is 
valid. I see your point, but it is more of an attack on the fact that 
there have been four men in a row than four extra men on campus.

> Also, the female staff tend to drift to the bottom. 
> Vector?  Sinistra?  I'm glad they're women, but they
> aren't exactly characters, are they?  Let's look at
> the most important staff: important in terms of their
> page time, impact on the plot, and status at Hogwarts.
>  Very roughly, and without too careful an attempt to
> rank them, I would say they are:
> 
> Dumbledore
> Snape
> McGonagall
> Hagrid
> Lupin
> Moody
> Trelawney
> Pomfrey
> Lockhart
> Binns
> Flitwick
> Sprout
> Quirrell
> 
> Four out of thirteen are women.  At 31%, it's way
> ahead of the United States Senate, but it's not
> exactly close to equal, is it.  The three most
> important ghosts/geists, if such may be considered
> staff, are Nick, Peeves, and Myrtle.  That doesn't
> improve the percentage.
> 
> I struggled with whether to include Hooch and decided
> to leave her off.  I guess she'd be next on the list,
> but then I'd probably add Dobby, who has a hell of a
> lot more impact from his stool in the kitchens.  
> 
> One ranking I'm clear on is that Snape, so far, is
> higher than McGonagall.  She's the deputy--good job,
> JKR--but he is a much more important character.  In
> page time, in impact on Harry's life, on the plot, in
> complexity of character . . . he's the number two
> professor in my mind if not in the official roster of
> the school.


You forgot Filch, who deserves a mention and weakens the percentages 
even more. We're really talking about two rankings though.

One is importance to story, and I think not only Snape, but Hagrid 
and maybe even Lupin, are higher up than McGonagall. McGonagall, 
Pomphrey, Trelawney and maybe Sprout are the only ones to have major 
impacts on the story. (Sprout is is kind of the herbal healer in CoS 
and has a role in GoF as the Hufflepuff head) Hooch I'd argue for, 
but I think I'm more clouded by the movie there.

However, of the ghosts, Myrtle has the most impact on the story, with 
Peeves in second and Nick third. Nick is a flavorful character, but 
doesn't drive the story too much.

But the other ranking is in the story itself. McGonagall is the 
deputy headmistress, and therfore second-in-command. There are two 
male heads and two female heads of houses. In terms of support staff, 
for a parallel to U.S. schools, the head of the nursing unit 
(Pomphrey) is a woman, the head janitor (Filch) is a man. The gardner 
and gamekeeper (Hagrid) is a man. Someone is probably in charge of 
the kitchen-elves, kind of the head chef, but we don't know the 
gender.

 
> > So, perhaps instead of being sexist, the books
> > actually depict a 
> > healthy relationship between boys and girls, one
> > that has some 
> > undertones of hormonal feelings, but so far has been
> > entirely chaste?
> 
> I do love this--Harry's having a female best friend is
> one of the many great things about the books.  I don't
> think it's unrealistic, but such close friendships
> between approaching-adolescence girls and boys are
> unusual.


Unrealistic was probably the wrong word. Compared to the rest of the 
school however, it is unusual.

Darrin
-- I've got to go to work. I'll respond to Jenny about Hagrid later.