Harry Potter is Anti-Woman

[Zara]

No: HPFGUIDX 181013

tiger_queen429:
> It's just the more I think about them, the 
> more I feel that the books are very anti-woman
<snip>

> The only thing we find out is that Snape is good 
> because of his obsessive love for Lily, her feelings for him do not 
> matter. 

zgirnius:
How so? If you mean from the point of view that we are not told about 
them – she is presented in Snape's memories, and we get to see a good 
deal about her as a person, not just how she interacted with Snape, 
but also her relationship with her sister. 

And personally, I don't think that `obsession' had a chance in Hell 
of surviving the breakup, Lily's marriage to James, and Lily's death 
if it were not for the fact that she was Severus's first and best 
friend. Her feelings, whatever kindness, inquisitiveness, and 
openness made her accepting on the little oddball from the wrong side 
of the tracks, mattered in that sense, to the story.

tiger_queen429:
>  Harry survived Voldemort's attack because 
> Lily, the mother, protected her son. 

zgirnius:
This is a bad thing? Depicting women as brave, loving, and self-
sacrificing in their roles as mothers is not anti-woman, surely? I 
mean, Harry was going to have a mother, so her actions towards him 
would necessarily be those of a mother, right?

And Harry, Our Hero, follows his *mother's* footsteps, on his road to 
the defeat of Voldemort. And tells us so, in case we missed it.

> tiger_queen429:
> Lily has nothing. She's 
> portrayed only as Snape and James's sex object and as Harry's 
mother. 

Zgirnius:
If evidence of her skill matters, we saw her move flower petals 
deliberately as a child. The only other person we are shown with 
apparently conscious control of magic pre-Hogwarts, is Tom Riddle, so 
she is in good company. (So to speak, <g>). That she makes no lasting 
mark with this talent, I think might have to do with the fact that 
she dies at 21.
> tiger_queen429:
>. She stands up 
> for Harry after he does Dark Magic and nearly kills Draco. I see 
this 
> as an example of Ginny being a mother to Harry, protecting by 
> sticking up for him. 

Zgirnius:
Protecting a friend, when a woman does it, is being motherly? 

> Ginny never shows the fiery spirit 
> that Harry loves so much about her to Harry. 

Zgirnius:
The OotP scene in which Harry thinks he has been possessed by 
Voldemort is an example, in my opinion.

> tiger_queen42:
> Hermione is the strongest of all female characters. However, she is 
> portrayed mostly as a mother, and only sometimes as a sex symbol.

Zgirnius:
The best student in her year of any gender, the nerd – is that the 
mother, or the sex symbol? What about the social activist who wants 
to free House Elves? The schemer who traps Rita Skeeter in a jar and 
leads Dolores Umbridge by the nose? The DADA expert who knows how to 
magically secure a campsite?

> tiger_queen42:
> In  DH she takes care of Harry and Ron. 

zgirnius:
Indeed, she saves their lives on at least one occasion I can recall. 
Through an impressive display of quick thinking, logic, and magical 
skill at the Lovegoods'. If this is just Hermione being motherly, I 
think we women should all aspire to be more motherly.

> tiger_queen42:
> Her talents are mostly used in 
> the previous books to emphasis right and wrong and to help Harry 
and 
> Ron with their homework (like a mother would do). 

zgirnius:
I disagree. While she does help the boys with their homework, her 
talents get plenty of use for other things. She solves 2 of the PS/SS 
obstacles, one with her superb grasp of logic (now there's a 
stereotyped depiction of a girl!). She figures out what the monster 
in CoS is and passes the on to Harry.  Her brains guide her and Harry 
through a bunch of the Time Turning in PoA. She helps Harry prepare 
for his tasks in GoF. The DA is her brainchild. And the DH victory 
could not have happened without her.

> tiger_queen42:
>You never really see her having fun except when she is out with 
Victor, 
> but then she looks so different that Harry doesn't even recognize 
her. 

zgirnius:
I must not be understanding this correctly. Hermione, in your view, 
never has fun except when she is dressed up to go to a ball? My inner 
feminist is horrified, I must say. I presumed she was having fun just 
being her own frizzy haired self, spending time with her friends, and 
bickering with Ron.

> tiger_queen42:
> From this story, I can see that JKR makes women not on the same 
level 
> as men. No woman is seen as the equal of Voldy or DD. 

zgirnius:
Right, in the 20th century, the two most powerful wizards in Great 
Britain are male. Yet we know from the books this is not always the 
case. Rowena Ravenclaw was a powerful witch. Nothing suggests to me 
that she was weaker in magic, intelligence, or in influence to 
Gryffindor and Slytherin. She was a founder of Hogwarts, taught, 
invented novel magical devices (her tiara) and, oh yes, was a mother.

If a woman lost in the mists of time could be a leader, academic, 
inventor, and mother, I do not see why we must suppose the same is 
not true in Harry's day. Does Mrs. Finnegan work? Mrs. Thomas? Mrs. 
Patil? We have no idea. Does Dolores Umbridge have offspring? What 
about Madam Marchbanks? Shop owners such as Rosmerta and Madam Malkin?

Further, women who do not work, are still shown as strong and 
influential. Dumbledore asks Molly whether she and Arthur will join 
the Order, instead of waiting to talk to the man of that household. 
Narcissa clearly enjoys the respect of Lucius, who is seen to follow 
her lead in Ch. 1 of DH. 

> Valerie Frankel: 
> Hermione needs boys to rescue her in book 4's lake scene and 
> book 3's dementor scene, to say nothing of the troll attack where 
she 
> and Harry become friends. 

zgirnius:
And Hermione returns the favor by rescuing Harry and Ron before the 
end of the book, by identifying and knowing how to neutralize Devil's 
Snare. The lake scene is nothing of the sort, she does not need 
rescue at all. Once the hour for the task was up, Dumbledore would 
have arranged for the removal of any unclaimed things the contestants 
loved best from the lake. 

Hermione also rescues Harry on two occasions in DH. She's no princess 
in a tower.

> Valerie Frankel: 
> Anyway, we definitely have mostly "angels in the household" like 
Mrs. 
> Weasley and Lily Potter. 

zgirnius:
Surely we know too little about Lily to class her as such? We know 
she was an Order member, and she died while the mother of a child 15 
months old. That's it. Did she fight, before Harry entered the 
picture? We have no evidence to the contrary.

> Valerie Frankel: 
> Indeed, Tonks, Fleur, and other "powerful" women, or at least 
equals, 
> give up their independence and settle down. 

zgirnius:
Pregnancy and the early infancy of a child are a time not to work in 
a dangerous and physically active job. We have no reason to suppose 
Tonks would have stayed away from her Auror job once Teddy was a bit 
older, if she had not died fighting in a battle.

Fleur might also work, for all we know. She got married after coming 
to a new country, and found herself in the middle of a war. Not the 
time to show her career woman stuff.

> Valerie Frankel: 
> Minerva tries, but she's 
> not very feminine, and we never see her moment as the all-powerful, 
> unequalled headmistress defending Hogwarts in book 7 (several 
> teachers help her gang up on Snape and her protective spells aren't 
> significantly better than the other teachers'). 

zgirnius:
Why does Minerva have to be feminine? Why does any woman?! That 
Rowling wrote an attractive female character (in the sense of being 
well liked by readers) who was not 'feminine' delights me.

And I disagree about her skills as displayed in the battle. I thought 
she was great, everything I would have hoped for. Who else have we 
seen cast three Patronuses simultaneously? And the army of moving 
desks was just amazing. More importantly, she is a commanding 
presence in the battle. The other teachers follow her lead. And no, 
this was not just about her rank in the hierarchy, assuming Snape 
kept her on at Assistant Headmistress - a battle to the death is not 
part of anyone's teaching contract.<g>

> Girls have limited options for Halloween: spacey Luna, walking-
> dictionary Hermione or only-appears-in-a-few-scenes Ginny. 

zgirnius:
One thing I will agree with is that the major characters of the 
series are, with one exception, (Hermione) male. But presumably one 
can write a story about men, without being anti-woman.