Harry Potter and the Feminist Rants

[willowisp]

Now that dust is settled and more people have finished the book, I'm seeing a lot of posts from people who are furious with the epilogue. We discover the fate of the four people mentioned in the cut tag, two apiece of female and male, and the gist of the rants is that those who are female have children and are married to the fathers thereof. The fury comes from there being no mention of careers or jobs outside of the house for the female characters.

[On a side note, I'm happy to see that most or all of the rants have acknowledged that staying home and being a housewife does not instantly render the woman inferior/weak. They seem to want to make it clear that they don't look down at stay-at-home moms, which is a nice change from the ridicule heaped upon stay-at-home moms in the feminist platforms I saw while growing up.]

What confuses me is that neither of the males are mentioned as having jobs either. There is no hint of "Ok, time for work, have dinner ready and the house properly cleaned by the time I get home". In fact, for all we know the husbands are stay-at-home dads and it's the wives who have careers. The thing is, the epilogue says nothing about the job status of the four people at all, and yet all of the people posting feminist rants are assuming that the men have jobs and the women are housewives.

I'm not quite sure what to make of that. Perhaps JK Rowling has given people reason to believe that all moms are stay-at-home in the witching world, and I've just completely missed it. It could also be that I misread the epilogue, although comments on the posts seem to indicate that other people got the same feeling I did; that the four characters' status as anything other than spouses and parents is left completely out of the equation.

Please note that I'm not accusing the posters of straw-man arguments. In fact, when confronted with the observation that it did not indicate the employment status of the male characters, most of the posters said something along the lines of "Oh wow, that's true". Most of them went on to say immediately that it was too bad the careers and/or activities of the female characters weren't mentioned.

I'm no great fan of the epilogue. I would have liked to see what shockwaves, if any, went through the muggle vs witching worlds as the result of the ending of the book proper. I wish we could have seen what happened to other surviving characters. It's just sad, perhaps, that even when something like job status is left ambiguous, people still believe extra clarification is needed to show that women don't default to one set path.

Comments

[potato-pope.livejournal.com]

...

Everyone views life through a particular lens. Everyone has a private crusade. And People who feel passionately will sometimes see offense where none is intended.

DON'T READ THE NEXT PART IF YOU ARE A Z0MG DON'T SPOIL ME OR I CRY TEARS OF BLOOD PERSON. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

I won't go into to much more detail for fear of spoilers, but I will note that I can only think of one confirmed homemaker mom in the book, and anyone who doubts her badassery regardless should reread the last chapter.

I did repost this because it contained *gasp* a name that would have been deemed super spoilery.

[kater-kat.livejournal.com]

Good night. Where in the... J.K. Rowling writes several strong women characters, which she never seems to put below a male. Even Mrs. Weasley, who is a stay at home mom, is a fairly strong character.

I thought the epilogue could have been more and was, to a degree, unnecessary for the points it did drive home. One could have easily assumed that the couple established in the epilogue would have worked out the way they did. I, too, would have preferred something a little more along the lines of the world as it is now, rather than such an unsurprising glimpse into a small event. And I would have liked to know about some of the other characters who survived, too.

[aelfsciene.livejournal.com]

My problem was not the epilogue in particular (at least not in this matter; I ranted about none of them having jobs, along with other things), but the series in general. HP7 really brought home that apparently, in the wizarding world, you can either be a wife and mother or a spinster with a wage-earning job. Bellatrix Lestrange is the only married and childless woman (whose husband has been dead for some time, and she's extra crazy), and there is a single example of a working mother (Marietta Edgecombe's (the Sneak from OotP) mom worked at the Ministry, and it apparently made her daughter weak-willed) in the entire, entire series.

I'm not saying that motherhood makes you weak, at all, but I'm infuriated that you seem to have a choice between that or spinsterhood. It's possible that the women in positions of power, like Amelia Bones or Umbridge or even the professors at Hogwarts actually have relationships or even husbands squirreled away somewhere, but the intimation (at least at Hogwarts) has always been that they're single and childless.

[potato-pope.livejournal.com]

I feel compelled to point a few things out. We have no evidence that Lily Potter was a homemaker. Hermione's mother is a dental hygienist. Neville's mother was an auror, as was his grandmother, if I recall correctly. Luna's mom was clearly not your typical housewife. Tonks was an auror. The list goes on.

So, I agree to some extent, but I also disagree. I think there are far more examples than you are remembering.

[aelfsciene.livejournal.com]

But we also have no evidence that Lily had a job outside of the home--you can make arguments that there's all kinds of things we didn't see, but if there's nothing in the books (or Rowling's FAQs or wherever else she's let things slip) to back it up, what's on the page is what kids are going to take away from the series.

Neville's mom was an Auror, but as Tonks did, may have stopped being so when with child (the respective wars make it sticky, which I freely admit; I'd really have liked to see Tonks after the current war), same with his grandmother. Luna's mom seemed to be a tinkerer, but only at home.

Fleur apparently stopped working once engaged (was Bill still going off to work before everything went down? I don't have a book handy to check). Molly, while awesome, was always at home, apart from her, hm, extracurricular activities (the Order).

Are there really other examples of working mothers (or wives, for that matter), or just more cases where we're not told either way, or are only shown older women apparently without families?

(trying to talk about this without spoilers is awfully difficult)

[willowisp.livejournal.com]

I hadn't yet seen your rant when I posted this; I was basing it on several others I've seen. I'm sorry for any misunderstanding which might have occurred. With regards to Lily not working outside the home, I get the feeling that James wasn't either. When you're in enough danger that your whereabouts are guarded by a secret-keeper, going to work seems like just a bad idea.

One other woman whose status seems to be "housewife" is Narcissa Black-Malfoy. However, I have my doubts that either of them would deign to sully their hands with something so base as work. Lucius was often spotted at the Ministry of Magic throwing money around, but I got the idea he was throwing around inheritance rather than anything he'd earned himself (or Narcissa had earned, for that matter).

Sadly, it is known that Alice Longbottom went to work after Neville's birth. He, like Harry, was one year old when Tom Riddle Jr made his big mistake. Both Alice and Frank were pursuing Death Eaters still on the loose after the big mistake when they were driven insane via the cruciatus curse.

I was rereading book six tonight, and Fleur mentions still working part-time at Gringott's, where she had met Bill. I had thought Amelia Bones was Susan Bones' (Hufflepuff in Harry's year) mother, but it turns out she was an aunt. Unfortunately I could not find what I was looking for; a laundry list of students discovering their relatives were missing/dead, and why it was suspected they were targeted.

You brought up something I noticed and have been pondering since I saw the first rant. It is true that none of the female faculty/staff at Hogwarts seemed to have spouses or children. The thing is, neither did any of the males. I'm trying to figure out if they had to be single in order to teach in the boarding school (with faculty on-grounds at all times) setting or if Ms. Rowling just left out any reference to spouses and children just to keep things simple.

A lot of women are mentioned as working at the ministry with no mention (that I can remember) of family. In fact, except for Barty Crouch and Arthur Weasley, I don't remember any mention of any family on the part of ministry workers in the first six books. I certainly hope Umbridge never spawned.

I believe Hermione says her parents are both dentists, not that her mother is a hygienist. Not that hygienists are not excellent, highly-trained people, but as far as I can tell her mom has the British equivalent of a DDS.

It seems that not much was said any which way, which goes back to my original statement: it's truly sad that even in this day in age, it is assumed that the absence of explicit statements to the contrary are interpreted as proof that the women have embarked upon a set path.

On side note, we are from the older generation now. I wonder how children reading the books these days interpret the whole thing? It may be that they don't see it the way we do; perhaps they are not as sensitized to the absence of direct reference as we are. I'll need to ask my cousin next time I see her, but as her mother is a dentist (and they go by Dr. and Mr. <name>, just for reference), she may read things into it that others wouldn't, especially since her mom shares a profession with Hermione's mum.

[kater-kat.livejournal.com]

I don't really consider myself as being one of the "younger" generation, though I am young, but frankly, I never noticed or paid attention. When it was mentioned what someone's job is/was, I stopped paying attention to the fate of said job, whether they were still going, or what. Frankly, it wouldn't surprise me if Fleur knocked it back to part time, at least while planning the wedding, and when they were at Shell Cottage I don't remember them commenting too terribly much on when she was hanging around the house - but then, they didn't say much about Bill, either, and I remember wondering fleetingly during the scene in Gringotts if either of them had anything to do with it after it was taken over. The book was never clear.

The thing is, Rowling never seems particularly interested in details that don't directly affect the plot line. Some characters are in relationships just because they are, and those who don't have relationships that work into the plot just don't seem to have them at all. Same with jobs. Maybe mentioned once to establish who they are/why they're there, and then unless it has a bearing on whats going on (like so-and-so working at the Ministry), it's irrelevant. Which is probably as it should be, because the books are awfully long as it is without delving deeply into nonessential details.

And incidently, despite being a single, career-driven woman myself, I resent the implication that being a homemaker/mother is anti-feminist, or that a woman has to choose between the two. I don't at all think it makes a woman weak or anything less than her husband just because she isn't working outside the home. She's still -working-, and pretty hard, too.

[aelfsciene.livejournal.com]

I haven't ranted proper, really, because other people have gotten there better and before me. I'm really enjoying the conversations about it, though, so was glad to see your post! ^_^

Thanks for confirming on Mrs. Longbottom, I really wasn't sure there, and as I'm vacating for the next week or two, don't have the books at all handy to check. As for Fleur, it's hard to tell, because neither she nor Bill seem to be working after the big bad goes down, but I'll give the benefit of the doubt that she might have done, if not for the war.

One of the things that I'm now taking into account, and that feels really strange, is that it's true very few of the men we saw in the books were described as having children, either. Someone pointed out that Arthur Weasley is a working father, but otherwise...not so much (and even their situation is weird, because Rowling's description/development of wizarding economy is poor at best). Which applies to the Hogwarts professors as well, of course, and it's something I'd wondered about before (as well as whether they have homes during the summer--Trelawney doesn't seem to, at least).

Hermione's mother, I admit, I kind of dismiss, because she's in the "real world" and I'm mostly wondering about how Rowling's set up the wizarding world. But your comments about the (my) assumptions in what's not on the page are what really give me pause, I must admit. It's more than a little dismaying to see that I immediately leapt toward the negative. I have no idea what kids will read in it--one friend suggested that since Rowling was a single mother when she started the books, that her experiences made up for what wasn't on the page, that maybe she (the writer) was assuming readers would just apply an equal-opportunity working situation, or something.

I dunno. I'm a little sensitive to it, as I appear relegated to spinsterhood myself (and have zero interest in children if I do ever end up with someone), and didn't really see much of a place for myself to fit in that world (Tonks' story didn't help, either). And it's not really unbalanced to see more men in positions of power and/or women at home, given how much of our own world is. I'd just hoped for something a little more forward-thinking, perhaps, but when considering a society that moves at a different pace and with different rules, it shouldn't have been expected.

[echoweaver.livejournal.com]

This is an interesting debate that I'm coming to late because I just finished the book. This seems to already be a spoiler thread, so I'm not trying hard to censor myself.

For more reference to character futures, I found this link to an article with Rowling: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19959323/

It looks like Hermione is doing just fine from the feminist career angle, and I wouldn't have expected differently from her. Homemaking as a singular passion isn't in her personality.

To be honest, I don't see anything that indicates that female homemakers are more common than female careerists. I think the only reason we get that impression at all (and I did get it a bit early on in the series) is because the most prominent adult woman for most of the series is Molly Weasley; SHE is a homemaker, and Harry clearly reveres that. This is a Harry thing, I think, not a Rowling thing. Molly is a major part of the very kind of home he never had.

And give Tonks a break, for heaven's sake. What she was taking could clearly be considered maternity leave; I'd have to review the timeline, but I don't think the final battle could have been more than three months after Teddy's birth. I did notice and was slightly bothered that she was so explicitly excluded from decision-making after Teddy's birth while Lupin was not, but I didn't think it was a major issue, and she showed up when it really counted.

One thing I did see, especially in the epilogue, is that Rowling seems to be equating happiness with having children. It seems that it was so important to her to write the epilogue in some sense just to let us know that everyone settled down, got married to their Hogwarts sweethearts, and had children. And, of course, the names of Harry's children are the central information expressed there. It seems that it was very important to Rowling to get to write that Harry got to build the loving environment he always wanted to grow up in. This was more important to Rowling than it was to me. So, like apparently many readers, I'd rather have had more epilogue or none at all.

But it's worth pointing out that revering parenthood is not the same as insisting women be homemakers.