Re: Male violence towards womenoneandthetruthSeptember 14 2014, 22:43:55 UTC
I totally agree that it's really disgusting, the way some female writers think it's OK for women to assault men, but not the reverse. What's even worse is when they treat the attack like a joke, as in Hermione siccing canaries on Ron.
I'm currently watching Outlander, the TV series based on Diana Gabaldon's books. I started reading the first book about 20 years ago, but I quit because I was so offended by a couple of the scenes. In one of them, a woman is trying to get her brother's attention. When he doesn't respond fast enough to suit her, she reaches up under his kilt and grabs his genitals. That's revolting on three different levels: (1) It's sexual assault. (2) She's grabbing her brother's junk, so it's semi-incestuous. (3) It's treated like a big joke in the text. Hideous all around!
Hey, here's an idea: How about nobody assaults anybody? That's what I'd like to see.
Re: Male violence towards womenmadderbradSeptember 15 2014, 09:27:31 UTC
What's even worse is when they treat the attack like a joke, as in Hermione siccing canaries on Ron.
And don't forget Ginny's sneak attacks on Smith - both of them. No way would Rowling have written good-guy Harry as cursing a girl behind her back, or flying his broom into an enemy while the latter is sitting down and unaware, but Ginny was written as doing so with total impunity.
The acts are often cited as testimony to Ginny's brutish character but they're good as anti-feminist fodder against Rowling too. :-)
Re: Male violence towards womenoneandthetruthSeptember 16 2014, 04:57:16 UTC
Oh, yeah, those attacks are very sexist. They feed into the patriarchal misogynist meme that women are sneaky, underhanded, and generally untrustworthy.
Now, once could argue that when a person is a member of an oppressed group, and/or they're physically smaller and weaker than their target, sneak attacks are valid, even necessary, because the assailant's social, political, cultural, and physical disadvantages require them to use whatever resources are available to them, including stealth, to even the odds in a fight.
However, that argument doesn't obtain in the wizarding world because magical strength is what matters there, not physical strength. A witch can easily overpower a wizard, if her magic and/or skills are more powerful than his. So witches have no reason to make sneak attacks on wizards, unless they're just underhanded people. And in that case, they should be in Slytherin, not Gryffindor. : D
Re: Male violence towards womenmadderbradSeptember 16 2014, 11:29:28 UTC
They feed into the patriarchal misogynist meme that women are sneaky, underhanded, and generally untrustworthy.
I don't think I've come across that meme. In the real world I think either gender can be stereotyped with equal ease as sneaky, underhanded and generally untrustworthy. No patriarchy required nor detected.
No, in this case, it's not a generic archetype which is thus maligned; it's simply *Ginny Weasley* who is depicted as sneaky, underhanded and generally untrustworthy. :-)
But Rowling's reluctance to have any boy commit the same cowardly assaults as Hermione and Ginny betrays her old-fashioned 'pseudo' feminism.
Re: Male violence towards womenjana_chSeptember 17 2014, 01:05:02 UTC
“Women are devious; men are honest and direct” is definitely a standard cliché. When you don’t have power, you have to be devious because directness doesn’t get you anywhere. It’s the old idea that the husband is head of the family but the wife always gets her way somehow, or the joke that “a man chases a woman until she catches him.” It makes both sexes look bad: men are dopes (powerful but complacent) and women are sneaks (weak but secretly in control).
Re: Male violence towards womenmadderbradSeptember 17 2014, 12:47:47 UTC
It’s the old idea that the husband is head of the family -
Whoa, that's an oldie!
“Women are devious; men are honest and direct” is definitely a standard cliché.
As is that one, IMO. Certainly I can't recall ever coming across it.
In the real world or Rowling's. While Rowling might have let her outdated notions of feminism and treatment of women guide her unconsciously in what she wrote - letting the girls attack boys but never vice-versa, only having good females take on Bellatrix in serious battle - she tried to establish that women were no more devious than the men. For every Umbridge there was a Fudge, yes? For every Ginny a Draco. :-)
Re: Male violence towards womenmadderbradSeptember 18 2014, 08:56:01 UTC
When did we last see a married witch who also holds a proper job?
When did we see a married witch who didn't?
Molly.
And ... uhm ...
Right now I can't think of any other married witches at all. Narcissa ... but we don't know what jobs she OR Lucius hold (I'd always assumed they were idle gentry). Andromeda? But we don't know about her job state either. Lily & James - were we ever told their jobs.
And of course the scenarios of 'married witches not holding jobs' is removed from the topic of 'head of the family'.
And even more removed from the “Women are devious; men are honest and direct” trope. I've never heard of that one at all, whereas I knew the 'head of the house' thing was pertinent once upon a time a fair while ago (in the real world).
Re: Male violence towards womenvermouth1991September 18 2014, 14:21:26 UTC
Your wording seemed a bit harsh to me, *however* it is true that I wasn't expressing myself as clearly as I'd thought I had. So let me rephrase: I wanted to say that in the many ways archaic Potterverse, it appears that the woman can only have financial independence if they plan to not marry anyone, and those who do marry often (I've found counterexamples in Ginny and Tonks now) do not persue any carreers, even when it would be wise to do so. Also the Husband as patriarch thing applies, even in families as the Weasleys. Sure Molly as a temper and keeps Arthur henpecked, but it's the subtle things imho at shows who really has the final say in things. Arthur's the main (if not only) source of income (we don't know how much Bill, Charlie, Percy or the Twins help the family financially), and Molly gets left out of things like attending the Quidditch Cup, when Arthur can find tickets even for Hermione and Harry.
(Does this seem clearer? I wanted to express how gender inequality worked in that world.)
Re: Male violence towards womenoneandthetruthSeptember 28 2014, 00:04:41 UTC
When I heard the premise of this book, I knew that it wasn’t for me because adultery/cheating is a major turn-off for me when it comes to romance. The idea of a woman leaving her loving husband to cheat on him with another guy didn’t appeal to me at all.Well, in fairness, she doesn't leave him. She goes to some standing stones at Halloween and is transported from 1945 to 1743. One could argue it's not adultery because her husband hasn't been born yet. She also obsesses over getting back to the stones so she can get back to her husband. And she marries Jamie because it's the only way the Scots can protect her from a sadistic redcoat who also happens to be her 20th century husband's direct ancestor (and who looks just like him, which is very weird). She also feels guilty about being an adulteress and bigamist (in her eyes). I'm basing this on the TV show, since it's been decades since I tried to read the book. However, the show is apparently close to the book. Having looked at the wiki page, I see that Claire does decide to stay with
( ... )
Re: Male violence towards womenoneandthetruthSeptember 28 2014, 01:01:41 UTC
I wonder if they would say the same if Jamie was a pre-Civil War American slaveowner who beat and raped his slaves. I wonder how many of them would excuse him by saying, “Oh, slavery was legal back then and a lot of people did that sort of thing.”
I think the movie 12 Years a Slave answered that. You can portray those things, but they'd better be shown as violent, disgusting, and degrading to all parties, NOT sexy and romantic. Granted, that movie is based on fact, but I think it would happen with fiction, too. Even Gone with the Wind, one of the most egregious examples of whitewashing (pun intended) slavery, doesn't show anything more violent than a slap between mistress and slave--and it was made 75 years ago
( ... )
Holmes buff butting in... (will comment on the rest if I can find the time)vermouth1991September 28 2014, 12:06:57 UTC
//That's why it really pisses me off when people call Holmes a misogynist.//
/I think that that idea may originate from (funnily enough) “A Scandal in Bohemia.” The idea that Holmes refers to Irene Adler as “The Woman,” because he was surprised that a woman beat him. In other words, the experience with Irene Adler didn’t teach Holmes that women could be just as intelligent as him, it was just that this one woman was special enough to achieve his respect, this implying that he’s a sexist./
From the end of that novella:
“And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom of Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a woman’s wit. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late. And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the honourable title of the woman
( ... )
Reply
I'm currently watching Outlander, the TV series based on Diana Gabaldon's books. I started reading the first book about 20 years ago, but I quit because I was so offended by a couple of the scenes. In one of them, a woman is trying to get her brother's attention. When he doesn't respond fast enough to suit her, she reaches up under his kilt and grabs his genitals. That's revolting on three different levels: (1) It's sexual assault. (2) She's grabbing her brother's junk, so it's semi-incestuous. (3) It's treated like a big joke in the text. Hideous all around!
Hey, here's an idea: How about nobody assaults anybody? That's what I'd like to see.
Reply
And don't forget Ginny's sneak attacks on Smith - both of them. No way would Rowling have written good-guy Harry as cursing a girl behind her back, or flying his broom into an enemy while the latter is sitting down and unaware, but Ginny was written as doing so with total impunity.
The acts are often cited as testimony to Ginny's brutish character but they're good as anti-feminist fodder against Rowling too. :-)
Reply
Now, once could argue that when a person is a member of an oppressed group, and/or they're physically smaller and weaker than their target, sneak attacks are valid, even necessary, because the assailant's social, political, cultural, and physical disadvantages require them to use whatever resources are available to them, including stealth, to even the odds in a fight.
However, that argument doesn't obtain in the wizarding world because magical strength is what matters there, not physical strength. A witch can easily overpower a wizard, if her magic and/or skills are more powerful than his. So witches have no reason to make sneak attacks on wizards, unless they're just underhanded people. And in that case, they should be in Slytherin, not Gryffindor. : D
Reply
I don't think I've come across that meme. In the real world I think either gender can be stereotyped with equal ease as sneaky, underhanded and generally untrustworthy. No patriarchy required nor detected.
No, in this case, it's not a generic archetype which is thus maligned; it's simply *Ginny Weasley* who is depicted as sneaky, underhanded and generally untrustworthy. :-)
But Rowling's reluctance to have any boy commit the same cowardly assaults as Hermione and Ginny betrays her old-fashioned 'pseudo' feminism.
Reply
Reply
Whoa, that's an oldie!
“Women are devious; men are honest and direct” is definitely a standard cliché.
As is that one, IMO. Certainly I can't recall ever coming across it.
In the real world or Rowling's. While Rowling might have let her outdated notions of feminism and treatment of women guide her unconsciously in what she wrote - letting the girls attack boys but never vice-versa, only having good females take on Bellatrix in serious battle - she tried to establish that women were no more devious than the men. For every Umbridge there was a Fudge, yes? For every Ginny a Draco. :-)
Reply
Reply
When did we see a married witch who didn't?
Molly.
And ... uhm ...
Right now I can't think of any other married witches at all. Narcissa ... but we don't know what jobs she OR Lucius hold (I'd always assumed they were idle gentry). Andromeda? But we don't know about her job state either. Lily & James - were we ever told their jobs.
And of course the scenarios of 'married witches not holding jobs' is removed from the topic of 'head of the family'.
And even more removed from the “Women are devious; men are honest and direct” trope. I've never heard of that one at all, whereas I knew the 'head of the house' thing was pertinent once upon a time a fair while ago (in the real world).
Reply
(Does this seem clearer? I wanted to express how gender inequality worked in that world.)
Reply
Reply
Reply
Reply
I think the movie 12 Years a Slave answered that. You can portray those things, but they'd better be shown as violent, disgusting, and degrading to all parties, NOT sexy and romantic. Granted, that movie is based on fact, but I think it would happen with fiction, too. Even Gone with the Wind, one of the most egregious examples of whitewashing (pun intended) slavery, doesn't show anything more violent than a slap between mistress and slave--and it was made 75 years ago ( ... )
Reply
Reply
/I think that that idea may originate from (funnily enough) “A Scandal in Bohemia.” The idea that Holmes refers to Irene Adler as “The Woman,” because he was surprised that a woman beat him. In other words, the experience with Irene Adler didn’t teach Holmes that women could be just as intelligent as him, it was just that this one woman was special enough to achieve his respect, this implying that he’s a sexist./
From the end of that novella:
“And that was how a great scandal threatened to affect the kingdom of Bohemia, and how the best plans of Mr. Sherlock Holmes were beaten by a woman’s wit. He used to make merry over the cleverness of women, but I have not heard him do it of late. And when he speaks of Irene Adler, or when he refers to her photograph, it is always under the honourable title of the woman ( ... )
Reply
Leave a comment