Working mothers, was Did the Slytherins come back

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 182072

> > Magpie:
> > That little detail is bizarre, isn't it? I think when it comes 
to this 
> > the books are like a nexus of all sorts of unexamined 
stereotypes that 
> > lead...somewhere...but are probably a mix of different things.
> > 
> 
> Pippin:
> My goodness, you're kidding, right? I mean, you do at least allow 
for the
> possibility that JKR is making fun of what Hermione calls the "old-
fashioned"
> ideas behind the staircase by showing us in exaggerated ways that 
girls
> do indeed have sexual interest in boys?

Magpie:
Of course I got that the staircase is supposed to be funny because 
it's the type of thing a school would do. But it's not just modern 
kids faced with something built for a time when there were different 
expectations for nice girls. It's sitting there conflicting with an 
often equally exaggerated portrayal female sexuality--which also 
contains plenty of ideas that are pretty old. In another book it 
would *just* be a funny joke on the idea that when the stairs were 
built girls were assumed to not have those kinds of thoughts so boys 
would only chase them. But it comes across a little differently when 
the book itself portrays the sexes as being very unequal on these 
terms, only it's the poor boys who are sought after by the girls. It 
doesn't seem like social change either. I would more guess that the 
boy-crazy has always been a female problem. Though Slytherins mix it 
up a bit--I'd forgotten the Bloody Baron. There's an example of a 
girl-chaser.

Pippin:
> It also shows us that social changes do take place in the WW.

Magpie:
The books just tend to mirror the Muggle world on that, even when 
the WW should probably have its own history. They have social change 
because they're a riff on us and our history. 

-m