Women and the Franchise in WW History (WAS: Harry and Morality)

[elfundeb2]

No: HPFGUIDX 57402

Barb wrote:

>[I]n one of the schoolbooks, Quidditch Through the 
> Ages, a letter is quoted that is supposed to be from a witch who 
> couldn't vote for the Minister of Magic.  (Something like, "If I 
had 
> a vote, he would have lost mine."  Forgive the paraphrase.)  This 
> implies that there was a time in wizarding society when women were 
> disenfranchised.  While we don't know how or when that changed, 
it's 
> quite possible that it occurred after law-breaking similar to what 
> occurred in Muggle society: women chained themselves to the gates 
of 
> Parliament, among other things, to protest their not having the 
> vote.

I've always wondered about the implications of this sentence.  
Is it intended to imply that women were disenfranchised, that most 
wizards were disenfranchised (at the time, IIRC, the English Muggle 
franchise belonged only to those who owned land), or both?

On the one hand, QTTA indicates that this letter was written in 1269, 
but only a century later there was a female Chief of the Wizard's 
Council (predecessor to the Ministry for Magic), and under her 
leadership, the council passed enlightened measures such as species 
protection for the Golden Snidget and a new definition of "beings".  
Did the witch suffrage movement take place that long ago?  Or was 
Elfrida Clegg chosen by male council members for strategic reasons?

On the other hand, since the WW seems to parallel the Muggle world in 
many ways, perhaps there was no universal suffrage; even today, the 
Minister for Magic seems to be chosen by a select club of pureblooded 
wizards (e.g., Sirius says in Padfoot Returns that Crouch Sr. 
was "tipped" for the position) that may echo the early wizard's 
council.  

Alternatively, the reference to voting in the thirteenth century 
compared to a later reference to a nineteenth-century Minister for 
Magic issuing decrees may suggest that the more egalitarian 
thirteenth century government was replaced by an increasingly 
powerful Minister in more modern times who could act without the 
consent of a council, and that recent Ministers have discriminated in 
favor of pureblooded males, so that the top jobs are no longer 
available to the Muggleborn (Dumbledore tells Fudge in The Parting of 
the Ways that he places too much importance "on the so-called purity 
of blood") or to women, who are conspicuously absent from the list of 
holders of top jobs at the MoM.

> I'd love to get more background on 
> the history of Magical Britain from JKR.  She's spoken of writing a 
> sort of encyclopedia of this sort.  I hope it would include 
> information about things like this!

Me too!  She also suggested in an interview that more would be coming 
about women in the WW.  If so, I wonder if these tantalizing 
sentences were included in the schoolbooks to hint at a future 
subplot.  

Debbie
wishing Binns would cover this in class instead of goblin rebellions