[HPforGrownups] Re: Stereotyping

[Kathryn Cawte]

No: HPFGUIDX 84640

Siriusly Snapey Susan

>
> I just don't see things this way.  Maybe I've read too much fanfic
> and my impressions are tainted by that, but overall in my reading of
> the Potterverse, I've found a refreshing *lack* of attention paid to
> one's gender.  Harry & Ron can be buddies with a girl.  Quidditch is
> *filled* with female players.  (Where does one see that in the RW's
> sports, at least where it's not even QUESTIONED but just IS?)  The
> Wizengamot icludes many female members.  The Order includes Molly,
> McGonagall & Tonks, an auror.  Pre-Umbridge, McGonagall takes over in
> DD's stead, NOT Snape or Flitwick or one of the other male teachers.
> Umbridge--awful person that she is--is clearly in a position of
> power.  The DA includes girls without reservation or protest, again
> something which would likely be questioned in many parts of the RW.
> I feel Ginny turning into a very strong young woman; Luna is
> definitely her own person; Hermione has a wide open future ahead of
> her; ....
>
K
There was a reason I stressed that these were my pre-OoP feelings. Before
OoP we really didn't know much about Molly and Minerva beyond the
superficial details that one was a mum and the other a teacher. The only
female character I really felt I knew was Hermione whereas we had Harry and
Ron for the boys and then Neville and Draco. The twins weren't very fleshed
out but I still felt I knew them better than Ginny. And amongst the staff we
had Albus, Snape, Hagrid. For the ghosts the only ones who really got any
'screentime' were Nick and Peeves. Quidditchwise we don't really know much
about the female players, the characters were never fleshed out (and I don't
mean they needed a lot of time devoted to them, just the odd line that tells
us something about them) - the players we really saw were the Twins, and
Oliver (and Harry and Draco obviously). James is the character Harry seems
curious about, not Lily. Then we have Remus and Sirius and Peter (we know
nothing of Lily's friends) Really we saw the female characters other than
Hermione so little and what we did see didn't tell us anything about them.
It's fine to have background characters we don't know much about, but do
*all* the female characters other than Hermione have to fall in that
category? Before OoP when we do see the women we see the 'mother' and the
'nurse' and the 'librarian', not to mention the 'adoring fan' (Ginny) and
the 'giggly girls', and that's *all* we get to see of them. Even Madam Hooch
(who after all is associated with quidditch about which we hear a lot)
doesn't get fleshed out.

I was delighted with the character developments and throwaway comments in
OoP that gave us a female MoM, witches on the Wizengamot, Umbridge, a much
more detailed Minerva, more about Molly, a fleshed out kick-ass Ginny, Loony
Luna and Tonks.


Siriusly Snapey Susan


> One reason we see so few examples of what WW moms [whoops--mums] do
> is that these books take place in large part at boarding school.
> Parents aren't around; their daily lives aren't discussed much.  We
> have no clue what Mrs. Diggory does or Mrs. Finnigan or Mrs. Thomas
> or Mrs. Patil or Mrs. Brown.  No, JKR doesn't tell us these things,
> but what, really, would they add to the story?  How/when would they
> fit in?  JKR has kept the Order's membership pretty small to this
> point (for who knows what reason--to keep the number of characters
> manageable?), so until/unless that circle expands to include lots of
> other Hogwarts kids' parents, we'll likely never know what Mrs. X
> does--**or MR. X for that matter**.  That doesn't make the WW--or JKR-
> -sexist, im(never-)ho.
>

K
But we do know what Mr Diggory does and Mr Thomas. The only mother whose job
we knew was Hermione's mother, and she was a muggle. I'm not talking about
spending much time and space on giving us details of the characters. Ginny's
comment about being possessed by Tom gave us an insight into her in *one*
line, the scenes at grimmauld place between Molly and Sirius and Molly and
Remus took up hardly any room in comparison to what they showed us. A prime
example of this use of one liners to give us insight into characters is Gred
and Forge's comment about Oliver trying to drown himself in the showers,
that reinforced our whole image of him in one line and he wasn't even *in*
the scene, Minerva's line that 'it unscrews the other way' is another
one-liner that tells us a lot about her, same with the comments about
Flitwick and the swamp.

JKR's genius is in creating characters that we feel we know (if we didn't we
wouldn't spend so much time arguing over their orientation, past, future,
houses etc) but before OoP the only female character I could honestly say I
knew was Hermione, with Minerva coming in a distant second. I was getting
heartily sick of the women in the Potterverse being relegated to the
background, fading into the scenery and being pigeonholed in nurturing
stereotypical roles with no chance of us seeing them as anything more than
that.

K