Feminism in Deathly Hallows - or the lack thereof v.3

[RavenStar83]

Originally Posted by MistressofRaven

I agree and disagree. I obviously wouldn't want a woman to be like Bella in real life. But she does have good qualities, namely that she does not change herself just to please others. I look at feminism in literature in two ways. One way is portrayal of women with positive qualities. The other is a portrayal of an array of women, from saintly women like Madam Bones to downright maniacally evil women like Bellatrix. While I can see the appeal in good upstanding women, I tend to go for a portrayal of women as they are in real life, which means some of the women are going to be scum. Of course part of this is driven by my tendency to cheer for the underdog.

I guess it depends on how one goes about favoring certain characters, and I don't think how you do it is wrong either. I do see the appeal of Bella as I do like her myself. From my experience, I think there's too much ingrained in our society in teaching women to be "scum". So I tend to be careful in what I label as feminist.

[wizard_master]

Originally Posted by MistressofRaven

Why do people consider Bellatrix Lestrange to be an unfeminist character? I've always thought she set a good example (if you get over the fact that she's evil). She always remained faithful to Lord Voldemort even though she went to Azkaban and people thought he had died, never caved to pressure. She always trusts her own judgment (even when that meant disagreeing with Voldemort in HBP). Her prowess is matched by few and she is Voldemort's most skilled warrior, meaning that she is more skilled than any man who ever worked for Voldemort. She was pretty awesome when battling Hermione, Ginny and Luna. They were students, but it still takes skill to battle three sets of spells and curses, and those three already had eperience fighting. She's smart. She is completely uncompromising. Yet, as you can see with her interactions with Narcissa in HBP, she loves her family and care very much about their well being. We see that she can be completely crazy as witnessed in her display of love for Voldemort in DH. However, we also see that she can be very level headed and quick thinking as witnessed in Malfoy Manor. I think she is quite a feminist character. She might be evil, but she is well rounded. The problem with most female characters seems to be that they are somewhat one-demensional.

Luna was anything but one dimentional, she has her eccentric side and her serious side. Bellatric i dont think was that one dimensional as you said bout Narcissia and her ability to care and be rather compashionate, but (IMO)what she says she meens it. yes she is protrayed as very skilled and evil but she is also protrayed as caring to a certain degree

J.K. IMO protrayed all of the characters quite well in the series.

[OldMotherCrow]

Originally Posted by Moriath

But one could assume that women would be more invested in feminist issues, seeing that they are being part of a discriminated group by birth. That is not to say that all female writers must write feminist books, far from it, but one could expect them to be more aware of feminist issues and strive to portray women outside stereotypes and conventions.

Fair enough. I think there have been times when I felt that disapointment.

I think this conversation originally stemmed from the observation that Rowling uses phrases like "be a man". I think she is using "man" to mean a responsible adult who does what needs to be done. But since it is gender specific, and I don't think we ever get a female equivalent of "be a woman", so it looks exclusive. So, I wonder, what does it mean to "be a woman" in the HP universe?

Hermione was often told she was the "smartest witch of her age", but then we are given plenty of examples of males who seem to equal or surpass her when they were her age. James, Sirius, Snape, Percy, Barty Crouch Jr, and Fred and George are great students or brilliantly creative, or both. I can't remember any girls other than Hermione being portrayed as great students, and none who are portrayed as creatively brilliant. So at what point does "smartest witch of her age" become "that's pretty good-- for a girl"? I do think Hermione is admirably intelligent, but unfortunately I don't think girls in general are portrayed as such.

[_Moony_]

Originally Posted by OldMotherCrow

Hermione was often told she was the "smartest witch of her age", but then we are given plenty of examples of males who seem to equal or surpass her when they were her age. James, Sirius, Snape, Percy, Barty Crouch Jr, and Fred and George are great students or brilliantly creative, or both. I can't remember any girls other than Hermione being portrayed as great students, and none who are portrayed as creatively brilliant. So at what point does "smartest witch of her age" become "that's pretty good-- for a girl"? I do think Hermione is admirably intelligent, but unfortunately I don't think girls in general are portrayed as such.

I don't think Percy and Barty Crouch Jr. equal or surpass Hermione. They are obviously intelligent, but they lack in character. Percy is only interested in his career, and nothing else (most of the time) and he is a real geek. He betrays his family, and is not very useful in battle (I know he comes back but his behaviour was still not very noble). Barty Crouch Jr. was part of an important plan, and did a good job, but what do we know about his character? He is just another evil servant of Voldemort. Hermione though, is not only smart but also loyal, very good in action, and a great friend. I also think when they say she is the "smartest witch of her age", they don't mean she's the only smart girl, but actually the "smartest 'magical person' (wizard) of her age" at least that's how I always saw it. But I agree that Sirius, James, Snape, Fred and George are/were also brilliant. I guess you're right that there aren't any more girls portrayed as being brilliant. I think Bellatrix was also smart as a student, but we don't know anything about her besides that she has been in Slug Club.

[OldMotherCrow]

Originally Posted by _Moony_

I don't think Percy and Barty Crouch Jr. equal or surpass Hermione.

I admit that the evidence that their academic brilliance is on par or surpasses Hermione's is thin. I think I only thought of them because they were each said to have gotten 12 OWLs (or am I mixing Percy up with Bill?). Of course, we don't know how many of their OWLs were Outstandings. For all we know they were 12 Acceptables. There was a Ravenclaw boy a year ahead of Hermione who got nine perfect OWLs.

[Melaszka]

Lily was a Potions genius, too, and I always took the brightest witch of her age thing to mean brightest magical person, but I agree - the dearth of exceptional girls and the way that academically unsuccessful boys (like the twins) turn out to be incredibly smart and successful at real life really bugs me, too.

[Yoana]

Yes, because impressively intelligent as Hermione is, academic smarts don't seem to have much consequence in the wizarding world.

To me, Hermione's merit from a feminist standpoint is elsewhere - she is well-rounded, developed character, with unmatched (in my opinion) depth, absolutely admirable without falling into the pitfalls of Mary-Sue-ishness.

[OldMotherCrow]

Originally Posted by Yoana

Yes, because impressively intelligent as Hermione is, academic smarts don't seem to have much consequence in the wizarding world.

To me, Hermione's merit from a feminist standpoint is elsewhere - she is well-rounded, developed character, with unmatched (in my opinion) depth, absolutely admirable without falling into the pitfalls of Mary-Sue-ishness.

Originally Posted by Yoana

Yes, because impressively intelligent as Hermione is, academic smarts don't seem to have much consequence in the wizarding world.

To me, Hermione's merit from a feminist standpoint is elsewhere - she is well-rounded, developed character, with unmatched (in my opinion) depth, absolutely admirable without falling into the pitfalls of Mary-Sue-ishness.

And those are many of the reasons that I find Hermione a wonderful character and great role-model.

In the early books of the series Hermione specifically was one reason I thought it would be a great series for girls, but in the later books I get the impression that girls generally are not as good as boys. It is a bit ambiguous whether Rowling meant to imply that this was because the Wizarding World still harbored subtle prejudices about the sexes that end up hindering girls, or she just forgot about girls, or both, or something else entirely. I think it unfortunate that there is the implication that an intelligent girl is an extraordinary thing, while intelligent boys are common, and it does worry me that children who read the series will get that as the message.

Let me see what evidence I can think of that the Wizarding World isn't the perfect equal-opportunity utopia:

The Fountain of Magical Brethren seems to be a monument to Wizarding prejudice, as the centaur, goblin, and house elf are ranged servilely around the witch and wizard. Although the witch isn't looking at the Wizard with a soppy expression like the others, it is the wizard statue placed at the center of the Fountain, with her to his side.

Only one female Minister of Magic is mentioned in the books, which seems to indicate that women don't get the job that often.

I think just two Headmistresses of Hogwarts are mentioned (other than the Founders). Despite two of the Founders being female, it appears that even for this job males were prefered.

Until the International Statute of Secrecy, Wizards seem to have been more integrated into the Muggle World. No reason to assume that Muggle prejudices weren't shared by Wizards.

Muggleborns and Half-Bloods are constantly being integrated into Wizard culture. No readon to assume that they don't bring prejudices from the Muggle world with them.

Slughorn's memory revealed an all-boy entourage, which implies to me that he was only giving his leg-up to boys in the early years.

Slughorn's initial invitations to the Slug Club party on the train went all to boys (Ginny was the only girl there, and was invited on a last minute whim). This indicates to me that he still actively thought of only boys for membership, but made exceptions for girls when he saw their talent firsthand.

Snape's Potion class that went on to NEWT levels with Slughorn seems to be almost devoid of girls. Many boys are mentioned in the class by name, but the only girl ever mentioned is Hermione. I think all other classes that we see in the books feature multiple girls, so this seems to indicate to me that girls were driven away from the subject at disproprtionately larger numbers than boys. Potions is required for many prestigious jobs, like Auror and Healer.


Can anyone think of anything else?

[_Moony_]

I wouldn't say that the prejudices regarding women are "Muggle prejudices", they are Human prejudices. In the Muggle World there are many more male politicians than female ones, and so on, but why should it be different in the Wizard World ? It's a general problem, and it wasn't created by either Muggles or Wizards. I think there is no need for Muggleborns/Half-Bloods to bring "Muggle prejudices" with them to the Wizard World, they are just there, and they probably always were.

[MasterOfDeath]

Now that I think about it, most of the background girls in the school are all girly and giggly..

Even Hermione when she's on dangerous quests, (especially in the early books) gets all nervous and scared like the girls in those classic horror movies.

Ginny is quite tough in the later books but even she is constantly in relationships, one right after the other. She is defined by her boyfriends to an extent.

I'm starting to think the HP books aren't really too feminist at all. But that doesn't make me love them any less. Sometimes I enjoy when modern stories go politically incorrect sometimes. It keeps things refreshing and tells me that the author is genuinely crafting her characters and story around her pure artistic inspiration and not on an artificial checklist. I wouldn't say the HP series was sexist, but they aren't feminist either.

[mrfutterman]

Originally Posted by _Moony_

I wouldn't say that the prejudices regarding women are "Muggle prejudices", they are Human prejudices. In the Muggle World there are many more male politicians than female ones, and so on, but why should it be different in the Wizard World ? It's a general problem, and it wasn't created by either Muggles or Wizards. I think there is no need for Muggleborns/Half-Bloods to bring "Muggle prejudices" with them to the Wizard World, they are just there, and they probably always were.

Because there is no "Wizard World". It is a construct; an invention. Its creator is careful enough to tell us that there is equality thee and that females are as powerful as, and the equals of, males. However, "telling" is what she does; she does not "show". These powerful females of hers hover in the background or have walk-on roles.

Of the key characters - all her creations - her males are more developed and have a depth denied to any female except Hermione. No adult females are on a par, as developed characters, with Dumbledore, Lupin or Snape.

Originally Posted by OldMotherCrow

Snape's Potion class that went on to NEWT levels with Slughorn seems to be almost devoid of girls. Many boys are mentioned in the class by name, but the only girl ever mentioned is Hermione. I think all other classes that we see in the books feature multiple girls, so this seems to indicate to me that girls were driven away from the subject at disproprtionately larger numbers than boys. Potions is required for many prestigious jobs, like Auror and Healer.


Can anyone think of anything else?

The author seems to perpetuate our hard skills/boys v soft skills/girls divide. She pokes fun at Divination and it must be said that Hermione despises it as much as Harry and Ron. But Trelawney is given a fan club of silly girls. There are no silly boys in evidence.

[OldMotherCrow]

Originally Posted by mrfutterman

The author seems to perpetuate our hard skills/boys v soft skills/girls divide. She pokes fun at Divination and it must be said that Hermione despises it as much as Harry and Ron. But Trelawney is given a fan club of silly girls. There are no silly boys in evidence.

While I do think it possible to take the exact same bit of circumstantial evidence about the Potion class sex ratio and plunk it down in the Rowling Just Forgets Girls Exist column, I think Rowling did show girls taking advanced classes besides just the silly ones. There appeared to be many girls in the DADA class, for example. There was also the numbers representing each House that made me think that students' Potion ability might be influenced by unequal treatment, so the huge discrepency between the number of girls to boys in the class stood out as a possible indication that the same might be going on here, too. I don't think this adds up to much on its own, but I thought I'd throw it along with all the little other things into a pile and see how big the pile could get.