RE; SocialChange

[pippin_999]

No: HPFGUIDX 182099

> 
> Magpie:
> Not that we really see. The Slug Club in Voldemort's Day is made up 
> of Purebloods but for some reason it's all male, just the way it 
> would have been at Oxford back in the day, when we've gotten hints 
> that the WW didn't follow the Muggle one when it came to sexism. 

Pippin:
But that's likely to be Voldemort's influence, isn't it? Most of the
DE's are male too.  

Magpie:
> After 7 years at school we never see anything in the way of Muggle >
mores influencing anything. 

Pippin:
Voldemort's attempt to establish fascism in the WW is definitely a
Muggle influence, as is SPEW.

Ron in GoF asks if SPEW will be called the House-elf liberation front,
(Elf Liberation Front would certainly have catchier initials), which
makes us very conscious that liberation ideologies are an idea coming
from the Muggle world, and Ron knows it. Ron has  a father who's very
interested in the Muggle world, the twins learn Muggle magic tricks
and Muggle housebreaking techniques, and Kinglsey Shacklebolt knows
enough to pass himself off as a high-ranking civil servant without
memory charming people every five minutes. (Though I'd love to think
that's the explanation for the disappointing  behavior of our beloved
leaders.)

But I agree that JKR's approach to world-building owes more to  comedy
 than history -- after all she's not an Oxford don like Tolkien, and
she's not trying to construct  an alternate mythology for England
either. As I've said before, it's more a toy universe than a working
model.

Pippin