Gender in the WW

[krista7]

No: HPFGUIDX 143593

Ceriden writes:

>I should probably jump in here.  I think, at least on this current go-
>round, that I'm the one who mentioned that Eileen would have too much
>power to wield over a Muggle Tobias, to allow herself to be abused.
>I based this on the WW and its witches who are in positions of power,
>in government, at Hogwarts, and probably in businesses as well (like
>Madam Malkin).  I was suggesting that, culturally, Eileen grew up in
>a world where no witch I've seen (with the exception of Merope Gaunt,
>who came from a very odd family indeed and didn't socialize much,
>from the way I read that scene) would ever tolerate abuse.  Woman
>Subservient is not the WW way.  While, it is, or was, the way in our
>world, for centuries or more

I see no evidence at all of a different gender ethic between the Wizarding 
World and that of the muggles around them. You can put aside the
Merope situation, but everything else *still* suggests the muggle world's
 gap between equality in theory and equality in practice.

Who is the Minister of Magic 
is book six and before that? Both men. Headmaster of Hogwarts? To the 
best of our knowledge, MM will be the first female in 100 years. 
(Considering Albus plus his predecessor.) Your psychotic political 
leaders gone amuck? Voldemort and Grindewald. Show me a 
woman in power, other than Judge Bones! (And 1 doesn't cut it
in a world with half the population female.)

Women in jobs? Pomfrey's a nurse, Madame Malkin runs a *clothing 
shop*, and there's whatssherface who runs the tea shop (don't kill me
 for forgetting her name), none of which rock the boat in terms of 
making feminist advances. Women at Hogwarts teach herbology, 
transfiguration, divination (mocked as *not* a hard science), and 
run the library; only Hooch as, basically, the gym teacher has a 
job that isn't traditional. As has been stated here before, Mrs. 
Weasley's a home-maker, and Narcissa Malfoy appears to be 
unemployed, too. (Okay, no idea what Lucius does, either.) Rita 
probably is the most "feminist" of them all, given that she has 
an independent profession and is rather ambitious in the way she
goes about collecting her info, shall we say. 

Onwards--

The girls of the girls' school, Beauxbatons, are presented as sex 
objects--although since they arrive when the kids are entering 
puberty, it's hard to separate the boys' perceptions of the 
Beauxbatons girls from how they'd be presented otherwise. 

Ron refers to Hermione jokingly as a "scarlet woman" for
being seen with multiple men in Rita's reporting, and I think
that is *very* telling about the conservative gender ethos in
the Wizarding World. First of all, Hermione--the brightest
of her age!--is most interesting to the wizarding press 
readers as a girl with an active social life, shall we say, *and* Ron is 
familiar with the idea that a woman with more than one
male associate is "bad." 

We *do* have two promising young women (Ginny and Hermione), 
but right now they're in a 
strange position to be judged. Many groused about the HBP 
making the girls stereotypical, but, eh, teen love is a natural 
phenomenon. All of the kids were lost in a sea of hormones in 
that book, so again, hard to judge them overall as examples. 

Our strongest adult women in terms of feminist examples are the
 women in combat, and even *they* present terrible examples for 
women focused solely on men: 
Bella LeStrange (psychotic follower, motivated by jealousy 
of those closer to Voldie than her) and Tonks (near to 
giving up all of her magic altogether, because Her Man won't love her.) 

The greatest women in the book as examples are 
mothers--Mrs. Longbottom and Harry's mom--who died/suffered for 
their kids. This fits in line with the woman-as-mother image and 
isn't especially feminist. (It isn't *against* women, of course, but just
not a breakthrough image.)

Bottom line is that I see no reason whatsoever to think the WW has
made much further advances in gender equality than the rest of the world
has.

Krista