Misogyny in Wizarding World: for me, it really hits home when Hermione at the end of Sorceror's Stone says, in response to Harry saying he's not as good a wizard as she is: "Me! Books! And cleverness! There are more important things – friendship and bravery and – oh Harry – be careful!" And I went, "uh, really?"
There also doesn't seem to be any future for a woman in the wizarding world except as an adjunct to a man. Adult women are divided into two categories: wife-mothers (Mrs. Weasley, Lily) and spinster teachers (McGonagall et al). There's no corollary to, say, Sirius Black in Harry's life. See here for a discussion in salon: http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2000/01/13/potter/index.html?sid=566202
I've lots more to say, but am having trouble finding words -- but inherently the books just seemed very ideologically conservative to me. I think astolat says it best here: [it wasn't so much that] she paired everyone off in the boring obvious heteronormative ways, because I knew she was going to, and also fandom can and will fix that in a second, but because of the awful sense of inertia. It's nineteen years into the future and they're all in exactly the same places they were nineteen years before, both in relation to each other and in relation to their environment. In fact, in the same places they were twenty-six years before, because all the friendships and pairings are basically as they were set up in the very first book. The kids are being put on the same train, to go to the same school, to what, re-enact their lives? Without Voldemort gumming up the works, presumably, but in the context of the backstory with Grindelwald, you sort of expect that hey, it's just about time for another Dark wizard to come along, who will have to be faced by Harry and Ron and Hermione's kids! and hey, we get to tell the whole story over again!
So the feeling I walked away with is, what Harry fought for was to lock them into this idyllic 1950s-esque suburbian status quo, where to me, his fight should have been all about diversity and progress, while Voldemort's side were the ones wanting to lock them into some kind of false-nostalgia for a time when wizards did things the Good Old Way. At least there should have been goblins in the train station putting THEIR kids on the train too; a tiny little house elf with giant eyes and quivering ears, timidly getting aboard. The kids going to Hogwarts on a high-speed maglev train in Muggle clothes with cellphones, rolling their eyes at Mom and Dad for still going on about that boring pureblood and muggleborn stuff, when everyone knows what's really important right now are ipods and environmental wizardry, etc. Or something -- just a sign that no, we're not frozen in time. (http://astolat.livejournal.com/156062.html#cutid1)
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Date: 2009-08-11 09:02 pm (UTC)Misogyny in Wizarding World: for me, it really hits home when Hermione at the end of Sorceror's Stone says, in response to Harry saying he's not as good a wizard as she is: "Me! Books! And cleverness! There are more important things – friendship and bravery and – oh Harry – be careful!" And I went, "uh, really?"
There also doesn't seem to be any future for a woman in the wizarding world except as an adjunct to a man. Adult women are divided into two categories: wife-mothers (Mrs. Weasley, Lily) and spinster teachers (McGonagall et al). There's no corollary to, say, Sirius Black in Harry's life. See here for a discussion in salon: http://archive.salon.com/books/feature/2000/01/13/potter/index.html?sid=566202
I've lots more to say, but am having trouble finding words -- but inherently the books just seemed very ideologically conservative to me. I think
So the feeling I walked away with is, what Harry fought for was to lock them into this idyllic 1950s-esque suburbian status quo, where to me, his fight should have been all about diversity and progress, while Voldemort's side were the ones wanting to lock them into some kind of false-nostalgia for a time when wizards did things the Good Old Way. At least there should have been goblins in the train station putting THEIR kids on the train too; a tiny little house elf with giant eyes and quivering ears, timidly getting aboard. The kids going to Hogwarts on a high-speed maglev train in Muggle clothes with cellphones, rolling their eyes at Mom and Dad for still going on about that boring pureblood and muggleborn stuff, when everyone knows what's really important right now are ipods and environmental wizardry, etc. Or something -- just a sign that no, we're not frozen in time. (http://astolat.livejournal.com/156062.html#cutid1)