Chrysoula ([info]chrysoula) wrote,
@ 2007-07-23 17:54:00
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It's about Harry Potter, yes. There could be spoilers.
Sometimes I read things I really want to respond to. But I don't want to smash anybody else's house and I don't want to pick on anybody. I just want to react. Here is where I'm going to do it.

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Feminist complaints
[info]chrysoula
2007-07-24 01:14 am UTC (link)
'No clearly defined wage-earning mothers.'

If this comes from wanting small children to have good role models, I really really strongly believe that kids are going to map their own domestic experience onto the unexplored areas of Harry Potter. Kids with stay at home moms may assume that most moms are stay-at-home, even after the kids are in boarding school. Kids with working moms may assume that the moms of most of the Hogwarts kids work. Speaking as somebody who scrutinizes most entertainment for good girl targeting, I think the series did an excellent job of providing examples of many females in many different situations who kick ass in many different ways, often more than the males. I also don't think the author had any responsibility to clearly indicate wage-earning moms or the wage-earning married childfree. The number of defined moms we encounter is far smaller than the number of children we encounter, and the number of women we encounter, which leaves a vast number of family units completely undefined. I suspect a large number of them aren't happy Weasely units, but instead more like Neville and his Gran or Luna and her father or Harry and his aunt. But more importantly, it doesn't matter to the story whether the women are sterile, single, abstinent, sexually liberated or secretly lesbians.

And I think it's depressing that some people are focusing on the 'wage-earning' aspect of women's lives. The entire setting falls apart when you think too much about the money and the occupations and so on. I assume what holds it together is stuff I don't know about. Presumably other people accept the same fact. Why accept some stuff exists we don't know about but pick on these few threads?

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Re: Feminist complaints
[info]space_parasite
2007-07-24 05:28 pm UTC (link)
Also, isn't the author a single mother? I doubt she thinks women can't support themselves and their children.

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Re: Feminist complaints
[info]chrysoula
2007-07-24 07:11 pm UTC (link)
She has a husband and two additional kids these days but she started out that way, yeah.

Furthermore on my rants! I was thinking last night about the entire Ministry of Magic and how fucked up wizarding society is in general. For example, there's no jury at the trials, just a collection of judges. They have the ability to spy on people at will, take memories from their minds, erase their memories, and they send accused criminals to an incredibly horrible prison, often without any semblance of a hearing. Despite their ability to read minds and do enormous amounts of magical research, they don't bother to investigate crimes unless they have a political reason to reject the obvious suspect.

Furthermore! They're ridiculously speciest, with departments dedicated to keeping nonhuman magical races under control and limiting the kind of magic they can use. They also limit human freedoms with various secrecy acts. One wonders how the thousands of muggle husbands and wives (for 50% of Hogwarts students come from a mixed family) are introduced to their spouse's world and kept under control. Most of their employs are incredibly corrupt, including, yes, Mr. Weasely.

Given all these government-spawned atrocities, it seems to take a very tight focus to complain about the lack of career mother role models.

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Re: Feminist complaints
(Anonymous)
2007-07-24 07:13 pm UTC (link)
Among libertarians, HP is a much-loved series, because so much of it is anti-authoritarian, and the government in the HP setting is nearly always portrayed as corrupt, incompetent, mismanaged, and occasionally evil.

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Re: Feminist complaints
[info]isildur
2007-07-24 07:25 pm UTC (link)
Whoops, that was me.

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Re: Feminist complaints
[info]drastic
2007-07-24 07:42 pm UTC (link)
"...One wonders how the thousands of muggle husbands and wives (for 50% of Hogwarts students come from a mixed family) are introduced to their spouse's world and kept under control..."

*points wands* Imperius!

Sure, sure, "unforgivable," I know. Unforgivable against wizards, maybe, otherwise, have at! Just don't make a mess.

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Re: Feminist complaints
[info]tamago
2007-07-25 03:47 pm UTC (link)
Also (ahem) what's wrong with staying home with your kids, if you can afford it? (she types, holding the baby.) I mean, maybe magic enables a high enough quality of living that it's feasable for one parent to stay at home with their kids. (And even if it's not, it seems that a lot of wizard jobs are easily adapted to work-at-home, at least part time. Witness the Quibbler's home-based operation.)

Frankly, with so many wizard children in boarding school, I'd be surprised if more mothers (or other caretaking parents... could be fathers, grandmothers like Neville's, etc...) *didn't* have some sort of outside the home occupation, at least during the school year. There are only so many sweaters Mrs. Weasley can knit without going insane.

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