There are oodles of fics in which Daphne, Tracey, or some such is being married of at the will of her father, only to have Harry coming dashing in to save the day. Many writers seem to treat pureblooded women like little more the chattel, to be sold to the highest bidder. They seem to believe that Magical Britain consists of misogynist aristocracy that rules the society and has total control of feminine destiny, with only muggleborn witches able to determine their own fate.

J.K. Rowlings books, a slightly confusing image. Two of the most revered people in Magical Britain’s History are women, Helga Hufflepuff and Rowena Ravenclaw. The portraits hanging in Dumbledore’s office present us with the impression that there have been as many Headmistresses as Headmasters. Over the course of the books two women take this office, Minerva McGonagle and Dolores Umbridge. Women also have powerful positions in the government, such as Amelia Bones being the Director of Magical Law Enforcement and Dolores Umbridge being the Minister’s Senior Under-Secretary.

At the same time the highest positions in government, the Minister of Magic and the Chief Warlock, are always held by a man (though it is never stated that they cannot be held by a woman). Molly Weasley is a stay-at-home baby-mill, and Narcissa Malfoy seems to be little more than a trophy wife. Of Voldemort’s Death Eaters, the only known females are Bellatrix Lestrange and Alecto Carrow.

Is there a gender bias in the Magical World? If so, to what extent does it exist? At what point does a the level of assumed gender bias in fanfic make you blood boil and take your mouse to the big red “X” in the top right?

 

I would lean towards there not being a great amount of difference between men and women in the wizarding world; there's certainly nothing in canon to suggest high levels of misogyny. As a general rule I would put gender relations at least slightly ahead of the muggle world; unlike with physical strength, there's no difference in magical capability between the genders.

Among the Purebloods there's no indication of the forced arranged marriages some fanfic authors like to use, but marriages do seem to be somewhat restricted. Marrying the wrong person can get a child disowned as happened to Adromeda Black/Tonks, and there is certainly a social expectation that women will marry (thus Bellatrix's marriage of convenience to Rodolphus). There's certainly no indication of there being any legal component to this, it's just a matter of social and family expectations required to be part of the Pureblood society.

 

I think the poll results say more about DLP than JKR...

vv *curtsies*

 

I'd say Rowling wrote the wizarding gender balance as an unconscious mirror of our own in the present day, western world. Women can hold offices of power, though it's still pretty rare for women to hold the very highest offices of power (PM, Pres, etc.).

If Rowling was consciously mirroring our own gender balance, then she'd have probably reflected the gender imbalance that existed 50 years and more ago. The Hogwarts founders, as your example, would have likely been male. Because she didn't do this, I doubt she put much conscious thought into it over all. She probably balanced the founders on gender lines with some deliberateness though.

tl;dr: She applied our current gender balance across the whole of the wizarding world and it's history.

 

A fate which (generally) consists of leaving the Wizarding World after they finish Hogwarts, or marrying a Wizard whose job opportunities among magical folk likely mirror her own. At least, as far as fanon goes. I've certainly seen stories that either ignore these fanon conventions or purposely go against them, but the majority seem to go much as you described.

Actually, the minister before Fudge was a woman, Millicent Bagnold.

And Lucius. Oh yes, I went there.

You'd think there would be, considering how prejudiced they are about everything else but there isn't much canon evidence for it.

Love potions seem to cut both ways, so that's a dead end.

Not human, but centaurs are almost certainly chauvinists, given what we know of them from mythology. Do we ever even see a female one in the books? Are they kept 'at home' while the men are off doing what they do? Maybe Rowling just didn't want anyone thinking too hard about the fact they'd be topless, so she just left them offscreen. The jiggling during full gallop must be considerably painful.

Or, like in some myths, maybe there are no female centaurs and they need human women to breed. Certainly gives the Ministry a reason to oppress them. To quote 'The Darkness' "Get your hands off of my woman, mother fucker."

-
For a semi-canon hint at arranged marriage, take a close look at the Black family tree. Bellatrix's father was thirteen when she was born! And there's, what, a three-quarter chance he was only twelve when she was conceived? No word on her mother's age, so she could have been anywhere from eleven or twelve to forty or more. Either way, that was almost certainly an arranged marriage.
-

Marriage Law fics... Ugh.

In theory, this is less a gender issue and more a case of the rich, corrupt, aristocrats/political figures trying to enslave the less powerful and (often literally) cherry-pick their society for the prime young males and females. In practice, however, marriage law stories that feature males being on the receiving end of the new law are rare, except for slash, so these are typically shown as being much more oppressive towards women, who are basically bought and sold like cattle.

Scarcely anyone puts any thought into those stories anyway; evinced by the way the stories multiply. One person with zero ideas of their own reads one, likes the idea, then 'writes' their own, and so on.

The 'marriage law' genre is misnamed anyway. It's not about marriage laws, 85% of the time, it's about making it legal for Snape/Draco/Lucius/Voldemort(!) to rape Hermione while, at the same time, making it illegal for her to escape, thus forcing her to stay with the rapist long enough to 'fall in love' with him. Hooray. uke:

The other 15% are the stories where Harry is forced to 'marry' Lucius/Draco/Snape/Voldemort(!). Urk.

I can think of two stories, offhand, that talked about the law itself, rather than focusing on who was raping Harry and Hermione after the bouquet was thrown. In one, a short one-shot from the Caer Azkaban yahoo group if memory serves, most of the affected people flee to the East coast of the US and Canada. Then the US declares war on Wizarding Britain. The other, There's Always A Way by Ruskbyte, has Harry hiring an assassin to do away with the people pushing the marriage law.

The few of these stories I've (tried to) read, not counting those two specific ones I just pointed out, frustrated me enough, back in the day, that I've thought more than once about writing a fic where a marriage law is instituted after Harry beats Voldemort, and (super!)Harry goes on a killing spree to keep his friends and loved ones from being bought and sold, just to get it out of my system.

I call that catharsis fiction, it's cheaper than therapy.

Edit: My poll answer: In canon, the genders would appear to be fairly equal. A woman seems to be free to achieve whatever she wants if she feels like bothering.

Fanon though... Even when the women are the ones writing the stories, females in Potter-land are quite often portrayed as being there just to keep your dick from getting cold (though the enlightened characters, 'good guys', typically recognize this as being a poor attitude to have).

 

And what about Narcissa? She does seem to be around at Death Eater events throughout Deathly Hallows.

I've always found this strange, as the History and Legends that JKR drew so heavily on in the creation of her little world often feature witches as powerful and frightening figures who go against the woman's proper place (i.e. in the kitchen, barefoot and pregnant).

Don't you hate when arranged marriage fics comment Harry's chosen woman can't go against her father, because she isn't as strong as Andromeda Black? Harry should want to wimpy hurt/comfort obsessed bimbo, he should be going after some strong and power witch who can give him the most powerful children possible.

 

I don't really see any reason for there to be a gender bias.

Gender bias in the Muggle world has its roots in the fact that men are, generally speaking, physically stronger than women, and thus have dominated the history of humanity in which physical strength made a difference, and thus men dominated society.

Gender balance is now occurring because physical strength matters little in today's society.

Thinking magically, women will be just as magical as men, and thus there will never have been a historical imbalance. There is no magical equivalent of men being physically stronger than women in the magical world, and so there is no reason for a gender imbalance to exist.

As far as the books go, this seems to be at least partly shown: female Ministers, female Headmistresses etc. There is indeed a lack of females in the DE ranks, but this may be because JKR may see women as more caring and thus less likely to be evil murderers.

 

Girl. Power.
http://mistful.livejournal.com/61583.html

One of the all-time-great lines:
"Snape – twenty years of bitterness and still going strong. Luna – totally over it while it’s still happening."


If you don't read the entire essay, read this:
"In each book we have a subvillain to Voldemort: Quirrell, Tom Riddle, Peter Pettigrew, Crouch Jnr. and Umbridge. Well, well, well. One woman in the bunch. And she isn’t even on the Side of Darkness. And her evil kicks their asses. When it came down to it, Quirrell was a weak-willed twit who was giving Voldemort head, Tom was all hat and no cat – stay there while I explain my whole plan to you, Harry! I haven’t managed to kill even one person with my giant snake! – Peter was a tame rat and Crouch Jnr… well, he had his moments, but when one came right down to it he was conducting an overly-elaborate plan when he could’ve just summoned Harry to his office and asked him to hold something. Umbridge would’ve thought of that. Dolores Umbridge was the best subvillain ever. Girl Power!

None of this shilly-shallying for Umbridge, no sirree Roberta. Want to dispose of Harry Potter? No channelling Voldemort, setting up a Triwizard Tournament, blah blah blah evilcakes for Dolores. ‘Dementors! The Potter boy! Get on it! Stat! P.S. Kill anything in your path.’ And she is genuinely creepy."

 

Hehe, I was just implying Lucius was a woman. Narcissa was around for that stuff in Deathly Hallows because Voldemort had taken over her home. The Malfoys piss me off, but I'll admit the dumb shits finally realized Voldemort was bad news in the last book. They were clearly uncomfortable about him being in their house.

 

It's written by a dyke.

 

Not really a relevant article (to this thread), for a very simple reason, which I will get to after a ton of rambling.

Yeah, as a comparison of Luna vs Snape, I agree. On the other hand, as a comparison of Girl vs Boy, I can't help but think that if Luna were male, the author of this article would have said male!Luna was an example of a weak-willed man allowing himself to be run roughshod over by his housemates, unlike the strong female characters.

It was an interesting read, and I agree with her that JKR chose to, by and large, display the women as being much smarter, stronger, and generally better on average than the men. However, there are a few hypocritical moments in there where she tries to eat her cake and have it too.

According to her, Snape is lame because he holds a grudge for twenty years, but Myrtle apparently has strength of character because she took a pass on the afterlife in order to hold her grudge. Uh, what? And Let's not forget why she died in the first place; she was crying in the toilet (a death that oh-so-strong Hermione would have suffered too, had it not been for Harry's strength of character). Yeah, sometimes you gotta cry, but as long as she's splitting hairs... I gotta call it.

And holding Merope as an example of anything but utter failure and weakness is nonsense. Yeah, she was abused (so was Harry), but that doesn't mean you can point to her actions and say 'good on you.' She used drugs to rape a man, marry him, and then when he rightfully dumped her on her ass, she couldn't quit being selfish long enough to scrape together the wherewithal to live for her son. Saying she 'died in childbirth' is misleading. It is strongly implied that what she died from was a broken heart. She lost her man and decided not to go on, even for little Tom's sake.

Oh, and I just thought I'd point out that Merope is Ginny, except Ginny had a better home life, an education, and a mother who taught her that you should NEVER be naive enough to assume he'll keep loving you, even after you stop giving him the potion. Thus Ginny succeeds where Merope fails.

Let us not forget that sainted Minerva didn't stick with her convictions about 'those horrible muggles', she simply said 'Okay Albus'. She's also the one who basically told Harry to bend over and let Umbridge put it to him because it was too much hassle to fight the government, even if they're torturing you.

The author also takes a potshot at Harry, suggesting he should be even more racked with guilt over Cedric's death than he already was. Cedric died because he and Harry decided to do the honorable thing and display good sportsmanship. Harry had nightmares about it the following Summer. Considering the vast amount of shit Harry has to deal with and the fact he wasn't at fault, I think he felt guilty enough.

She says at one point, "Petunia sounds hotter than Vernon deserves." Well, shit, a hippo with facial lesions is hotter than Vernon deserves, so that's no great accomplishment. Did she miss the part in the books where Petunia was described as horse-faced? And since when were the books a beauty contest? What does that have to do with the women being better or worse than the men?

She makes much over the fact that a string of the female characters are described in a somewhat flattering light, physically, and that the boys are described as things like 'gangly', 'scruffy' and so on. Well no shit! The books are from Harry's point of view. He's not going to wax rhapsodic about his own looks, and certainly not Ron's physique, or Diggory's smug bastard good looks. Come on! And that comment that the good looking guys in the books stole girl power to do it, what does that even mean? That whole paragraph is inconsequential.

I did laugh at her prediction that Ginny or Hermione would defeat Bellatrix in a fight that was cooler than Harry vs Voldemort. Nope, it was Molly in a fight that wasn't even as cool as Ron punching Malfoy.

Her other prediction of Ginny's increasing coolness was shot down by the fact that she wasn't even in book 7. Oh wait, she was... for five seconds. But, hey, the guy she thoughtlessly drooled over before she even met... she got him handed to her in the end, even with her nearly undetectable amount of personality.

However, the article does conclude with the point that all of this relentless girl power is actually poor writing on JKR's part and feels hollow (pun certainly not intended) in the end. I agree. And did this barrage of uber-women even make good on the promise of all that girl power when it's all said and done?

Not really.

Hermione married that retarded boy who spent the books insulting her and belittling her passions.

Ginny netted Harry and pumped out some kids, and it all falls flat in the face of her complete lack of personality and her absence from the books.

Tonks is a lesson in tragedy. She chose her boyfriend poorly, was nearly abandoned by him, and then orphaned her son due to poor decision making.

The failure of the girls to really shine at the end of the books is made all the worse by the fact that they were presented as being so much better all throughout the series.

All-Knowing Hermione doesn't shine when placed beside her retarded friends and is much more appealing viewed as a flawed character.

Likewise, Ginny is an empty character, being, in the essayist's opinion, not much more than a mere personification of girl power (and in my estimation, a faceless cypher/JKR stand-in). She also admits that the boys, terribly flawed though they may be, are ultimately more sympathetic for all their faults than the flawless females.

So, yeah, some of the points she made along the way are iffy, but I agree with her ultimate conclusion that the overabundance of girl power made for a less interesting, less satisfying series in the end. Yes, in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, but is that really an accomplishment? In the Wizarding World, the super-women look quite superior, but when their counterparts are below average, weak, stupid, pathetic men, is that really an impressive accomplishment? Does it make for good reading? Does it satisfy?

The series is named after Harry Potter, so it is lamentable that we weren't given a more heroic hero. Had the series been named after Hermione Granger, it wouldn't have been much better. In many ways, she's ultimately a better hero than Harry (though in a few, such as keeping her nerve in a fight, she falls short), but having her paired off with Ron at the end would have been an even bigger let down if she were THE heroine.

Likewise, 'Ginny Weasley and the Deathly Hallows' would have sucked, since the heroine would have been on screen for less time than anyone, even people who died in the previous books.

What the essayist wrote, though, must be considered alongside the fact that her favorite character is Draco.
Yeah, sorry, but that does reflect on a person's judgment. Even with ovaries, Draco would have been pure fail in a pasty package.


---
More pertinent to this thread, the article was, as I said, interesting and good points were made, but this thread isn't about whether or not the women are better than the men, it's about whether or not they are treated better by Wizarding Society. My vote is still that they're pretty equal (or, if the women are sooo much better, they must be getting repressed somehow to only appear to be on equal footing with the males).

But, yeah, the article does handily point out how openly biased JKR's writing is. There were scarcely any heroes worth the name in her 'heroic epic', but there were plenty of women running roughshod over their retarded be-testicled counterparts.

 

That was epic Warlocke. I completely agree.