Umbridge's Rape (Was: Is Umbridge a Half-Breed???)

[jsmgleaner]

No: HPFGUIDX 78131

Abigail wrote: 
[huge snip]
In order to take 
> power away from Ratched, McMurphy exposes to the world the 
> fact that she is a woman - her sexuality makes her weak.  
> Penetrable.  
> 
> I think the fact that so many people jumped the conclusion of 
> rape in Umbridge's case - despite very little hard evidence in the 
> matter - is emblematic of the same kind of perception.  Umbridge 
> needs to be taken down a peg, and how do we do that?  By 
> raping her.
[snip]
> I'm not pleased by the way JKR wrote Umbridge.  The immediate 
> reaction to OOP is that finally JKR has remembered her female 
> readers.  She gives us Tonks and Emmeline Vance, makes Molly 
> significant in the Order, brings Ginny to the fore and makes 
> McGonagal infinitely more interesting than she ever was before.  
> But then there's Umbridge, and the readers who delight in the 
> assumption that she was raped, because the stuck-up bitch 
> deserved it.

I agree with your reading (which I snipped a bit), which was I posted too 
(when you did your snipping it looked like you attributed to me someone 
else's quote, one I was responding to). Whether or not Umbridge was raped, 
there is a sense in which JKR puts her readers in the position of desiring 
revenge, particularly physical revenge agaist a woman.  You've covered the 
issue of using women's sexuality to reduce their power so well, that I will 
simply agree.

I had meant to point out that the many calls for Umbridge to receive more 
punishment, particularly physical punishment, or the excitement about the 
centaurs' possible revenge/justice can be read in another way, paying 
attention to the overall ethics JKR is mapping out.  My point is that JKR uses 
Umbridge to place her readers in the position of acting like Barty Crouch, Sr., 
throwing important ethical boundaries out the window in order to fight evil on 
its own terms.  Just as Crouch allows aurors to use the illegal curses and 
throws suspects into prison without trial (Sirius), readers are suddenly forced 
to confront their own reactions to an ostensibly bad character who has done 
wrong but is taken down for it, but not within a justice system.

Some parts of Umbridge's character were heavy-handed (why "Inquisitor"?; 
why not something subtle like "Chief of Excellence"?), and I was really 
disappointed when JKR has Umbridge admit that she sent the dementors 
after Harry, just like an evil, inept villain at the end of a James Bond film, 
telling the good guys the whole plan and all of her evil deeds.  On the other 
hand, the fact that she represents the kind of mundane evil that proliferates 
during times of crises was very important, and I think it speaks back to the first 
war with LV (through Crouch Sr.) and looks forward to Harry and others 
realizing that people who are on the bad side don't always know they are (or 
know they are helping it), which will make the ethics of the last two books 
more mature.  I hope.

--jsmgleaner, who is fascinated by the Umbridge character, and not just 
because of her visceral reaction as a teacher