Weasley Poverty, Working Wizard Women; was Molly & Arthur - was Why I like G

[hogsheadbarmaid]

No: HPFGUIDX 123734


phoenixgod2000 wrote:

IMO, Molly has absolutely no excuse to not work when all of her 
children are gone for so long out of the year.  She has the time to 
work if she wanted to. I honestly don't know why she doesn't since 
she clearly doesn't like being poor any more than Ron does.


Then Salit wrote:

I am a single mother who has always been working in a male dominated
profession (software engineering), yet I find this comment
condescending and insulting. Equal rights and opportunities mean first
and foremost the right to make choices on what is best for you and for
your family, without regard to what the social elite of the time
thinks. Once women were expected not to work and society frowned on
those who did, today it seems that too many have gone the same
sanctimonious path in the other direction and frown on those who have
made, together with their spouse, a decision on what is best for their
family as a whole.

<snipping lots of good Molly stuff here>
 
As for Arthur getting a better job - clearly he is very commited to do
a good job at the ministry and has been blocked from promotion by the
bias of the establishment (as Molly says at the end of GoF after Fudge
storms out of the hospital wing). If he loves what he does, excells in
it and feels that without him the status of the people he is
responsible for (muggles) will be compromised significantly, then all
I can say is that he is a much better person than those of us who
choose a job mostly based on how much it pays.

Salit


Now The Barmaid:

This thread had a lot of branches and it is hard to figure out where 
to jump in.  So here goes.

There seem to be two main topics entwined here:  class and gender

Class:

There seems to be an assumption in some posts on this topic that 
everyone has some sort of moral obligation to make as much money as 
they possibly can.  The Weasleys make enough to cover the basics and 
take a nice trip now and then.  Unlike, oh say, the Malfoys, they do 
have to make some choices about how to spend their limited 
resources.  Sometimes they make choices I would make, sometimes not.  
But there is nothing innately morally right or wrong about them 
choosing to visit their son in Egypt and at the same time buying used 
books or hand down cloths among their kids.  From Ron's perspective 
(and Draco's) they are poor and he does not get everything he wants 
because of that.  But frankly Ron is benefiting from many of those 
choices and from the rich family life the Weasleys have built.  It is 
likely that he will appreciate the non-material wealth of his family 
as he matures. (Or I should say it would be likely were he an actual 
person and not a character in a book, which, by the way, he is, they 
are – not real)

Gender:

I do not really get why people paint JKR's WW as having old fashioned 
ideas about gender.  I do not see this in canon at all.  There have 
been women Headmistresses of Hogwarts and women Ministers of Magic.  
There are an equal number of women and men teachers at Hogwarts.  
Quidditch is amazing and unparalled in our world – a sport where men 
and women play together and excel equally.  We see examples of women 
that work outside the home and own businesses and women that work 
inside the home.  What is very important to remember is that we have 
seen  _very few_ examples of domestic life in the WW.  We just do not 
know much about how most WW families really work.  Given what we do 
see of public life it seems safe to assume that there is a mix of 
family arrangements.  I am sure that if Molly decided to get a job 
outside the home (or not) there would be no social stigma assigned to 
either her or Arthur.  

The Malfoys hate the Weasleys and we do not know the whole story 
there.  It seems to me that it is connected to political and 
philosophical issues, things like Muggle Relations and tolerance of 
Dark Arts.  Draco and his father know that one way they can belittle 
their _political_ enemies is to present the class differences as a 
moral failing on the part of the Weasley family.  I would humbly 
suggest that we should not follow this example.

-- Just a Humble Barmaid
 no accumulated wealth here.