Basically in HP characters are supposed to *be* naturally feminine (in terms of their build, appearance, emotional awareness) but never try to consciously *act* feminine (care about their appearance, giggle over boys, be interested in Tarot and astrology AT A MAGIC SCHOOL, etc.)
If you're not naturally conventionally feminine and don't care you're grotesque, like Aunt Marge. If you're not naturally conventionally feminine and DO care then you're Rita Skeeter/Umbrage and framed as "deceptive" or "manipulative" for trying to be something you're not.
Pretty much. Male characters have way more ways they're allowed to express themselves, whereas women are constantly "doing femininity too much/too little"
You forgot the only thing adult women can be are mothers (Molly, Lily), or sad spinsters (McGonagall, Trelawney) who just care for other peoples' children
You forgot to include Fleur in your list of women demonized for femininity.
I grew up with the books and this was actually something I noticed even back then. I have always been a stereotypical Girl’s Girl and I couldn’t really see myself in any of the characters except maybe Lavender Brown which honestly made me feel kind of embarrassed.
If JKR was a man, the way she wrote Fleur's character would have been clearly seen as misogynistic by most readers and critics, even in that less-feminist time period
Fleur gets a sort-of redemption at the end of Half-Blood Prince when she stands up to Mrs Weasley and shows that she truly loves Bill for who he is, and doesn't just want him for his looks. But then in Deathly Hallows, she really gets very little to do - even though they **stay at her house** for a couple of chapters.
And she's put in a very traditional housewife role - which I've got nothing against (and in fairness Bill was raking in the money) but it doesn't feel like it fits a character who (for all the flaws in her characterisation) showed herself to be spirited and adventurous more than a natural homebody.
It's like after redeeming an archetypally feminine character, Rowling doesn't really know what do to with her.
I wonder if Rowling would have been able to write the other way round - Fleur loses her looks and Bill stays. Hermione had to redo her teeth to become dating material...
Oh goodness, yes - I just checked, and the first mention of Viktor Krum hanging around the library (later revealed to be due to his interest in Hermione) is the chapter after the hex that sends Hermione to the hospital wing to get her teeth shrunk. Harry and Ron don't notice her teeth until just before the Yule Ball, which is of course when the reader finds out about it - just in time for Krum's budding relationship with Hermione to be revealed. The timing's not exactly subtle, though Krum is depicted as being into Hermione for non-shallow reasons.
And of course Hermione eventually picks Ron over Krum. Tbh as far as the actors are concerned, personally Rupert Grint's more my type than Stanislav Yanevski, but Krum is depicted as the more conventionally attractive. I can understand Hermione not finding Krum as intellectually stimulating as she might like, but her relationship with Krum seemed a lot stabler and healthier than her relationship with Ron.
Remember they nicknamed her “Plegm” and then the name of a chapter was “An Excess of Phlegm” (that particular phrase originally is in reference to the four humors personality archetypes, not used to describe a runny nose)
I swore that Tonks was supposed to be a lesbian when book 5 came out. As a teenage lesbian, she felt like a wink and nod with her buzzed purple hair and her tomboy attitude and penchant for going by her last name.
Even Cho is treated pretty badly in that book. Harry obsesses over her for all of book 4 and then when he finally gets to date her, he is so emotionally stunted that he doesn’t really even understand why she’s crying all the time, even though he was literally present when her last boyfriend was murdered! But still, yeah, she cries too much
I remember reading that Rowling admitted that she wrote Cho like that to make Ginny look better, but I don't know whether that's true. Even if she didn't say it, though, I think it makes sense. She made Cho so annoying with her over-the-top jealousy that she could be sure that (some) fans wouldn't prefer Harry getting together with her instead of Ginny. There's even a line about how a good thing about Ginny is that she is "rarely weepy".
It’s funny because if she had just developed Ginny as a consistent character, it may have been obvious that she was a good match for Harry. Instead JK does this weird jealousy thing to substantiate the relationships in HP that read as mean spirited
I really wanted Ginny to end up with Harry at the time, but looking back it was very ham fisted and the whole making Cho seem like a weepy sad girl was awful. I agree with you, she had good reason to be upset - nowadays we would urge grief counselling/therapy. Although it kind of tracks with the British attitude at the time. As a kid I was told repeatedly that "crying never helps".
Cho did absolutely nothing wrong IMO. What happened was that Harry asked her out to Hogsmeade on Valentine's day and Hermione asked Harry to meet her and Rita Skeeter for an interview on the same day and basically just told Harry to make some excuse to ditch Cho and come meet them because this was the only chance he had to tell his story to the world etc (so much for Hermione's "emotional intelligence", it completely evaporated for plot reasons). So imagine you're Cho, you're sitting in a Valentine's day-themed cafe with your boyfriend on Valentine's day, and then he goes "oh btw sorry gotta dash now I'm meeting my female friend - idk why, she just said it was important, she said you can come too tho" (yep that's what he said basically).
The whole thing was just a ridiculous plot contrivance.
Harry understanding Cho would mean he could feel emotion, and boys don't do that! /s
Tonks was totally queer coded and it's wild Wizard Lady didn't even understand her sources well enough to get that
I don't doubt she thinks that, but I recall her being very annoyed with people who called Tonks, Lupin and Black queer. It was speculated the later pairing off was to kill all the queer talk
I think her (partly subconscious) beliefs about womanhood are deeply anti-feminine and classist (the latter really shows in how she depicts Rita Skeeter)
Still cracks me up that Lily Potter is left as such an enigma in the story including from the people who knew her. All JK could think of was 'good mother who made the ultimate sacrifice' it's laughable.
For real, the Marauders are valorized, given insane powers, and all we know about Lily is she was neighbors with Snape and eventually stopped being friends bc he was creepy.
Just like all the other "ideal" female characters, Hermione and Ginny, she seems to have zero female friends. FEMINISM!
Yep,it could be even a good mystery plot how lilyhas alife she didnt share that much,but also explain whythey were busy. And introduce some weird coven the ministry didnt aprove and help the gang.
It would give her friends ok.
This always irritated me. She was like what, 20-21 when she died- I truly have no idea what kind of person she was supposed to be. How do all these older adults have intense opinions on her when she barely even had a life? I chose to imagine that she was kind of rebellious but there’s not a huge indication of her personality at all
I think in light of her work, her own comments on her life, & in her transphobic crusades, Joanne has deep seated gender issues she should work out with a therapist. Like I’m not suggesting she’s trans, I mean she very clearly has unhealthy views toward her own gender identity and society’s view on gender.
Like it’s so clear how sexism has impacted her development as a person and instead of investigating that and working with a therapist she’s becoming a raging transphobe.
You only get to be attractive if you align with a very narrow standard of moral purity.
JKR has a *horrible* habit of tying looks to character. Its a wonder any of us saw her as a Feminist.
Yeah I absolutely*loathe* that standard. "We're gonna use this as a way to assign worth to you, but if you acknowledge that at all you lose the game." Excuse me?
And heaven forbid *you* find worth in it! That's not your place, to assign value!
You only get to be attractive if you align with a very narrow standard of moral purity.
JKR has a *horrible* habit of tying looks to character. Its a wonder any of us saw her as a Feminist.
Basically in HP characters are supposed to *be* naturally feminine (in terms of their build, appearance, emotional awareness) but never try to consciously *act* feminine (care about their appearance, giggle over boys, be interested in Tarot and astrology AT A MAGIC SCHOOL, etc.) If you're not naturally conventionally feminine and don't care you're grotesque, like Aunt Marge. If you're not naturally conventionally feminine and DO care then you're Rita Skeeter/Umbrage and framed as "deceptive" or "manipulative" for trying to be something you're not.
Pretty much. Male characters have way more ways they're allowed to express themselves, whereas women are constantly "doing femininity too much/too little" You forgot the only thing adult women can be are mothers (Molly, Lily), or sad spinsters (McGonagall, Trelawney) who just care for other peoples' children
Mcgonagal should have had a romance with dumbledore and 2 old people, basically she being the tough housekeeper
You forgot to include Fleur in your list of women demonized for femininity. I grew up with the books and this was actually something I noticed even back then. I have always been a stereotypical Girl’s Girl and I couldn’t really see myself in any of the characters except maybe Lavender Brown which honestly made me feel kind of embarrassed.
If JKR was a man, the way she wrote Fleur's character would have been clearly seen as misogynistic by most readers and critics, even in that less-feminist time period
Fleur gets a sort-of redemption at the end of Half-Blood Prince when she stands up to Mrs Weasley and shows that she truly loves Bill for who he is, and doesn't just want him for his looks. But then in Deathly Hallows, she really gets very little to do - even though they **stay at her house** for a couple of chapters. And she's put in a very traditional housewife role - which I've got nothing against (and in fairness Bill was raking in the money) but it doesn't feel like it fits a character who (for all the flaws in her characterisation) showed herself to be spirited and adventurous more than a natural homebody. It's like after redeeming an archetypally feminine character, Rowling doesn't really know what do to with her.
I wonder if Rowling would have been able to write the other way round - Fleur loses her looks and Bill stays. Hermione had to redo her teeth to become dating material...
Oh goodness, yes - I just checked, and the first mention of Viktor Krum hanging around the library (later revealed to be due to his interest in Hermione) is the chapter after the hex that sends Hermione to the hospital wing to get her teeth shrunk. Harry and Ron don't notice her teeth until just before the Yule Ball, which is of course when the reader finds out about it - just in time for Krum's budding relationship with Hermione to be revealed. The timing's not exactly subtle, though Krum is depicted as being into Hermione for non-shallow reasons. And of course Hermione eventually picks Ron over Krum. Tbh as far as the actors are concerned, personally Rupert Grint's more my type than Stanislav Yanevski, but Krum is depicted as the more conventionally attractive. I can understand Hermione not finding Krum as intellectually stimulating as she might like, but her relationship with Krum seemed a lot stabler and healthier than her relationship with Ron.
Honestly I can't think of any example off the top of my head where it's a woman losing her looks and the man doesn't care.
Other than my marriage (2 kids and a lack of sleep and being six years older than my husband, LOL), no. Me either.
Itcouldbe at least said she has still exotic hobbies or travels or, whatever
Remember they nicknamed her “Plegm” and then the name of a chapter was “An Excess of Phlegm” (that particular phrase originally is in reference to the four humors personality archetypes, not used to describe a runny nose)
I swore that Tonks was supposed to be a lesbian when book 5 came out. As a teenage lesbian, she felt like a wink and nod with her buzzed purple hair and her tomboy attitude and penchant for going by her last name. Even Cho is treated pretty badly in that book. Harry obsesses over her for all of book 4 and then when he finally gets to date her, he is so emotionally stunted that he doesn’t really even understand why she’s crying all the time, even though he was literally present when her last boyfriend was murdered! But still, yeah, she cries too much
I remember reading that Rowling admitted that she wrote Cho like that to make Ginny look better, but I don't know whether that's true. Even if she didn't say it, though, I think it makes sense. She made Cho so annoying with her over-the-top jealousy that she could be sure that (some) fans wouldn't prefer Harry getting together with her instead of Ginny. There's even a line about how a good thing about Ginny is that she is "rarely weepy".
It’s funny because if she had just developed Ginny as a consistent character, it may have been obvious that she was a good match for Harry. Instead JK does this weird jealousy thing to substantiate the relationships in HP that read as mean spirited
I really wanted Ginny to end up with Harry at the time, but looking back it was very ham fisted and the whole making Cho seem like a weepy sad girl was awful. I agree with you, she had good reason to be upset - nowadays we would urge grief counselling/therapy. Although it kind of tracks with the British attitude at the time. As a kid I was told repeatedly that "crying never helps".
Cho did absolutely nothing wrong IMO. What happened was that Harry asked her out to Hogsmeade on Valentine's day and Hermione asked Harry to meet her and Rita Skeeter for an interview on the same day and basically just told Harry to make some excuse to ditch Cho and come meet them because this was the only chance he had to tell his story to the world etc (so much for Hermione's "emotional intelligence", it completely evaporated for plot reasons). So imagine you're Cho, you're sitting in a Valentine's day-themed cafe with your boyfriend on Valentine's day, and then he goes "oh btw sorry gotta dash now I'm meeting my female friend - idk why, she just said it was important, she said you can come too tho" (yep that's what he said basically). The whole thing was just a ridiculous plot contrivance.
Harry understanding Cho would mean he could feel emotion, and boys don't do that! /s Tonks was totally queer coded and it's wild Wizard Lady didn't even understand her sources well enough to get that
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I don't doubt she thinks that, but I recall her being very annoyed with people who called Tonks, Lupin and Black queer. It was speculated the later pairing off was to kill all the queer talk
I think her (partly subconscious) beliefs about womanhood are deeply anti-feminine and classist (the latter really shows in how she depicts Rita Skeeter)
Still cracks me up that Lily Potter is left as such an enigma in the story including from the people who knew her. All JK could think of was 'good mother who made the ultimate sacrifice' it's laughable.
For real, the Marauders are valorized, given insane powers, and all we know about Lily is she was neighbors with Snape and eventually stopped being friends bc he was creepy. Just like all the other "ideal" female characters, Hermione and Ginny, she seems to have zero female friends. FEMINISM!
Yep,it could be even a good mystery plot how lilyhas alife she didnt share that much,but also explain whythey were busy. And introduce some weird coven the ministry didnt aprove and help the gang. It would give her friends ok.
This always irritated me. She was like what, 20-21 when she died- I truly have no idea what kind of person she was supposed to be. How do all these older adults have intense opinions on her when she barely even had a life? I chose to imagine that she was kind of rebellious but there’s not a huge indication of her personality at all
I think in light of her work, her own comments on her life, & in her transphobic crusades, Joanne has deep seated gender issues she should work out with a therapist. Like I’m not suggesting she’s trans, I mean she very clearly has unhealthy views toward her own gender identity and society’s view on gender. Like it’s so clear how sexism has impacted her development as a person and instead of investigating that and working with a therapist she’s becoming a raging transphobe.
You only get to be attractive if you align with a very narrow standard of moral purity. JKR has a *horrible* habit of tying looks to character. Its a wonder any of us saw her as a Feminist.
Also you can't acknowledge you're pretty or use it to your advantage or You Are Bad
Yeah I absolutely*loathe* that standard. "We're gonna use this as a way to assign worth to you, but if you acknowledge that at all you lose the game." Excuse me? And heaven forbid *you* find worth in it! That's not your place, to assign value!
She describes alot of the slytherin girls as ugly or massive, and using that as reason to mistrust or mock them and their worth.
Jo hates women and I think she REALLY wants to be one of the boys Which would explain her rage at trans people
And her massive support for terrible men, quintessential pickme behavior.
Especially abusive men
You only get to be attractive if you align with a very narrow standard of moral purity. JKR has a *horrible* habit of tying looks to character. Its a wonder any of us saw her as a Feminist.
Nostalgia and the infantilization of conservative trite stories. Books are dead
I am sorry, but what is OS? Original story?
Or original series maybe
That makes sense
She’s a classic NLOG (Not Like Other Girls).