sexism in the WW

[Matt]

No: HPFGUIDX 84827

--- Debbie wrote:

> [I]t is strongly implied that Amelia Bones 
> is single.  (If she is Susan Bones' aunt and 
> she is married, by the WW conventions we see 
> she would have a different last name.)  

I had likewise taken the impression that Amelia
was unmarried and childless, although more as 
a negative impression than from anything said 
explicitly.  Your point about the name is a fair 
one, although Amelia could also be Susan's aunt 
by marriage to a parent's sibling (probably, in 
that case, Susan's father's brother), rather 
than herself being a sibling of one of Susan's 
parents.  

You make an interesting point about Alice 
Longbottom.  I had not remembered the discussion
from GF about her and Frank in such detail, and 
I did find it natural when OP referred to her as 
an auror.  Having read what you quoted from GF,
I have to agree that JKR may well not have had
Alice penciled in as an auror before OP.  

On the other hand, JKR's decision to make Alice an auror when the time
came to flesh out Neville's parents is at least a further indication
of an equality of status for women that has run through JKR's
depiction of the WW throughout all the books.  For instance, your
assertion that:

> In the WW, as well as here, it appears that 
> women have a much more difficult time reaching 
> the top of their professions if they must juggle 
> work and family.  

is *very* weakly supported.  (It is not perfectly clear whether you
mean that working mothers have a harder time than other working women
or harder than working fathers, but there is little support available
for either statement.)  Rowling has never said that Elfrida Clagg or
Dilys or Rowena Ravenclaw or Helga Hufflepuff or Minerva McGonagall --
or Umbridge, for that matter -- was unmarried or childless.  She has
specifically indicated that it is wrong to assume (as you appear to
do) that the Hogwarts teachers are unmarried merely because we never
see their families.  See Comic Relief interview transcript at
http://www.comicrelief.com/harrysbooks/pages/transcript3.shtml ("Q:
Have any of the Hogwarts professors had spouses?  A: Good question --
yes, a few of them, but that information is sort of restricted --
you'll find out why.")

Indeed, that last point could be made more general: as noted in my
prior post discussing Alice Longbottom and Madam Edgecomb (#84097),
unless it serves some plot function, we very rarely learn much about
the family relationships of anyone Harry meets in a professional
capacity.  So, while you're right that Madam Edgecomb is the "only WW
example [other than Alice Longbottom] of mother with a paying job,"
that's mostly because we don't know whether all those other working
women we see are mothers.  And that veil of ignorance isn't unique to
the women -- unless I missed someone in my earlier post, we only hear
about five working fathers in the WW: Arthur Weasley, Frank
Longbottom, Mr. Lovegood, Amos Diggory, and Barty Crouch, Sr. 

The only working parent whom we know has had "difficult[ies] ...
juggl[ing] work and family" is Barty Crouch.  He is said to have let
his family down pretty severely because of his singleminded devotion
to work, perhaps even to the point of contributing to his son's
decision to become a Death Eater.  Then, as we see, he overcompensates
by helping his son escape Azkaban, with disastrous consequences.

You refer to Madam Edgecomb as an example of the conflict between
career and children ("Marietta's mother ... fears for her position if
her daughter was found to be associating with Harry Potter"), but she
cannot lend much support to your argument.  Madam Edgecomb fears for
her job not because she is a working mom but because she works for a
corrupt bureaucracy that judges its employees' loyalty based on the
actions of their family members.  Those concerns are not limited to
working mothers or to women: Percy Weasley worries in exactly the same
way about his family's loyalty to Dumbledore and Harry hindering his
career advancement.  

I think you and I agree that JKR *intends* to be portraying a WW where
professional stature is not dependent on gender.  I am not sure why
you are struggling to find holes in that portrayal.  I think it would
be fair to say that her portrayal of such a world is overly idealistic
and fails to confront real-world problems like work-family balance and
glass ceilings.  But I don't think it's fair to read those issues into
the portrayal when JKR has (it appears to me) consciously chosen not
to put them there.

-- Matt