Ravenclaw House

Hermione Granger and the Charge of Sexism

I really liked the points that Sarah Zettel made in her paper about whether or not the Harry Potter books are sexist. Of course, her ideas about the purpose of feminism and what makes things feminist lines up with my own points of view, so it’s probably not that big a surprise that I agree with her. In the article, Zettel brings up three different articles that argued that the Harry Potter series was sexist. Zettel talks about how those articles were cherry picking their quotes and did not look at the story from a broad enough perspective.

Firstly, I think it’s important to say that I do think it’s incredibly important to be very wary of all media and to dissect works of fiction from a variety of social standpoints (racism, sexuality, gender, etc.). Sometimes, a story might overall be good but have a few weak spots. These weak spots should be addressed, but should not stop people from enjoying that particular thing. If I avoided everything that I could define as ‘problematic’ in one way or another, I wouldn’t be able to read any books or watch anything on television. It’s impossible to make a piece of media that is 100% politically correct from every angle because we live in an imperfect society. Everybody has some prejudices and biases that slip into their life every day, whether it be consciously or unconsciously. It’s important to keep that in mind when criticizing works for not being what you would consider an ‘idealist’ feminist point of view.

I like the way Zettel talks about how the female characters in the Harry Potter books are multifaceted and complex. A great example of this is Hermione Granger. When we meet Hermione for the first time, she’s portrayed as a know it all who loves to show people up. As the first book continues, we see that although Hermione is serious and likes to follow rules, she’s also loyal and has a good heart. Ass the series progresses, you can see her change even more. While Hermione still wants to do well in school and be successful, she always tries to do what’s right first, even when those two things conflict. Zettel talks about how Hermione stands up to Umbridge even though Umbridge could technically expel her, which demonstrates how much doing the right thing matters to Hermione. While Hermione has many great qualities, she is also not a ‘Mary Sue’ (an idealized female character who cannot do anything wrong). Hermione makes mistakes and has some negative qualities. Hermione is portrayed in a way similarly to Ron and Harry in how strengths and weaknesses are shown, which I think is important.

Another important thing that Zettel brings up is the idea that “alike and equal are not the same thing”. A lot of people tend to get angry when women are portrayed as being stay at home moms (like Molly Weasley) or obsessed with makeup and boys (like Lavender Brown). But there are women who are stay at home moms and are obsessed with makeup and boys; that doesn’t make you any less of a feminist or mean that you’re bringing down other women. My idea of feminism is that women should be allowed to choose what they want to be. Zettel seems to agree with me on that point, and I think that’s really cool.