Nel Question #9: Gender - Perfect Sense

[Steve]

No: HPFGUIDX 127467


>--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, elfundeb <elfundeb at g...> wrote:
>
> ..., Donna Harrington-Lueker faults the books for 'subtle sexism,' 
> maintaining that 'none of the girls or women in GoF escapes 
> shrillness, giddiness or fear.'  Hermione is 'bossy, shrill,
> exasperating and meddlesome,' 'the stereotypical good girl who
> completes her work ahead of time, chides her friends fro breaking
> rules and always has her hand up in class.'
>
> Christine Schoefer writes,'Girls, when they are not downright silly 
> or unlikeable, are helpers, enablers and instruments.'  
> 
> ....eedited...
> 
> 4.  Do you believe the books are male-centered?  Could she have made
> the books less male-centered without sacrificing the story?  Is this
> important to female readers?  To male readers?  Should it be?
> 
> ...edited...
> 
> Debbie 

bboyminn:

These books are absolutely biased, there are distorted to a male
perspective, and are male-centeric [period, full stop, absolute end of
sentence]. Yet, how could they be other than /male-centered/ when the
central point-of-view character is a male; further, a very young male?

Instead of complaining that the books are male-centered, which of
course they well should be, people should be marveling, as I do, that
a female author could so thoroughly and accurately capture the
male-mind. Speaking as a former boy (current man), JKR got it
amazingly and wonderfully right.

I speculate some of the things about the portrayal of girls that
people don't like, are simply respresentations of the things that
catch Harry's eye. Logically, the aspects of girls that catch Harry's
eye are not the ways that they are the same as boys, but the way in
which they are very obviously and, from a boy perspective, strangely
different than boys. 

I don't see what the problem is, it all make perfect sense to me.

Steve/bboyminn