Harry Potter is Anti-Woman

[l.anne120]

No: HPFGUIDX 180992

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "tiger_queen429" <tiger_queen429 at ...> wrote:
>
> I was a huge fan of Harry Potter. I loved the interesting world and
> all the characters in it. It's just the more I think about them, the
> more I feel that the books are very anti-woman. I know that this has
> been said before, but I keep thinking that the horrible way that JKR
> treats women. Harry Potter is set in what I can best describe as an
> idealized version of the United States in the 1950's. Women can be
> smart and successful as long as they do not even think about marriage
> or a family. Women are either mothers or workers; they can't be both.
> Men can have any type of job they want and a family, usually with
> some degree of success. If you look at the way the sexually active
> women are treated through out the book, you can see the way that
> these women are portrayed in two roles: sex objects and mothers. Here
> are some examples:
<SNIP>



I disagree.   I won't answer point by point, but I think if we recall that we see everything
from the oblique perspective of Harry's point of view, it could certainly seem as if the
women are marginalized.   JKR, speaking of Mrs. Weasly, described her as quite a
powerful witch who did what many women did - made a choice about how to live her life,
favoring raising a family over a more public life.   Harry only sees her as a mother figure
because that is Harry's only experience of her.  In the battle of Hogwarts, however, we see
a very different witch, a formidable foe who ultimately vanquishes Belatrix.

And, are you forgetting that Ginny was not only the popular girl, but was also a Quiddich
star?  One of the reasons she is so popular with the boys (and one of the reasons Harry
seems to fall in love with her) is because she is so fluently conversant on the subject of
wizard sports.  Having grown up with boys, she understands them and, that ease with
men makes her immensely popular.  But to dismiss her as mere eye candy does a
disservice to the depths of the portrait that JKR draws.  She, too, shows some heroic flair
in the battle of Hogwarts, but again, we only see a bit of this because we are limited by
Harry's perspective.

The perspective problem is particularly acute when it comes to the past which Harry has
such limited access to.  Why none of Lily's female friends show up in her life is not
something we can answer, although, give the state of siege in the wizarding community
and how cut off James and Lily were at the time of their deaths, it makes sense that after
school, she fell out of touch with anyone who was not a member of the Order.  And
because Harry learns everything he knows about Lily from Snape's memories (which is, in
and of itself, quite a telling detail) it again makes sense that we can know very little.  But
let's recall how Lupin (at least in the movie) and Slughorn remembered her to Harry:
kind, compassionate and tremendously smart.   Something of a genius in potions, if
Slughorn is to be believed.  We don't see her as anything other than Harry's mother, but
she was a member of the Order and we don't know what she was asked to do or how she
exercised her talents in the months after she left Hogwarts, married James and was finally
isolated by the fidelius charm.

There are countless other examples that I think depict a full range of women - good and
bad, strong and weak; Dolores Umridge, for example, who is as crafty and conniving (and
probably quite smart in spite of her nastiness).  We don't get to see the living Bathilda,
but we know how important a contribution she makes to the Wizarding community.   And
what about Rita Skeeter?  She is a caricature, but the depiction of her through negative
stereotype does not, I think, amount to misogyny.  Luna is also a bit of a caricature, but
we get a brief glimpse of her mother who, though absent, was also something of a
brilliant witch.

I like the range of female characters in HP.  But, because JKR's principle character is an
adolescent boy (and we could talk all day about what that means) and not an adolescent
girl, we limited in what we can know.  However, I think JKR does a respectable job of
fleshing out the story, populating it with secondary characters, male and female, who
show a lot of wit and nuance.

ironchef