Hp&hbp Spoilers

[greatwhitenorthchick]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Mircalla on women in the Potterverse:



I was having a discussion (again) about Tonks. We all know that I feel like Tonks was a fairly weak character in HBP. People have said they thought it showed great strength of character that she wanted to be with Lupin in spite of the fact that he’s a werewolf. I agree. And it showed great strength of character for Fleur, who before this looked a bit silly, to stand by Bill. It takes great strength of character for Molly to be there for her husband and children, who are all in the Order, and for whose safety she worries all the time. And it took enormous strength of character for Lily to die for her child.

But…are we seeing a pattern here?

Why is it that so many of the women’s “finest moments” all seem to revolve around “hearth and home”? Isn’t this perpetuating a stereotype? It does seem that the wizarding world is rather old-fashioned – women certainly work, but it seems like only those who are unmarried have careers outside the home (given, we haven’t seen that many married women, so I’m extrapolating from a very small amount of data here. And for all we know the female professors and staff at Hogwarts could have husbands and/or children, although that doesn’t seem likely – McGonagall, for one, spends her free time at Hogwarts). Fleur’s job doesn’t seem very serious – it’s part-time, “until the wedding,” so that she can “eemprove her Eenglish.” And just from very minor hints dropped here and there – Fleur’s happy that Bill likes rare steaks, so obviously there’s no doubt who’s going to be doing the cooking.

There isn’t anything in the world wrong with stay-at-home wives and mothers, and I certainly would hope that any parent would sacrifice anything for their children. And it isn’t just women; Sirius, certainly, was willing to risk his life for Harry. But it would make me feel a little bit better about the Potterverse in general if we saw more strong women whose major strengths did not *only* cover the domestic sphere. Again, of course, McGonagall is a strong woman. And there are strong women that we’ve seen “in the background,” so to speak, such as Amelia Bones. But get this. (It’s another one of those “little hints.”) Amelia Bones is Susan Bones’ aunt. Seems to me like that means that Amelia isn’t married (if she were Susan’s mother’s sister, she’d have a different last name; if she were Susan’s father’s sister and her name is *still* Bones, that means she isn’t married.) Madame Maxine, certainly a strong character, also unmarried. There’s really only one married woman who seems very strong and she’s…well…Bellatrix. In other words…she’s EVIL.

Okay, you might say I’m stretching things here, but the overall picture certainly seems to indicate that wizarding women, even more so than modern-day Muggle women, generally have to choose to either be wives and mothers, or to have careers. And damn it, that pisses me off.

‘Cause if *I* were going to create a whole new world, I think I’d try to remedy that. I’m just saying.

There was a good article in Salon about this:

http://dir.salon.com/story/books/fea...tml?sid=566202

(sorry, it's premium, I think you can get a day pass)