feminishblog:

Reader Submission: Hermione Granger and the Failures of Feminism

“Hermione Granger is JK Rowling’s feminist presence in the Harry Potter series, and she is a triumph. Hermione is a wonderful feminist character: smarter than anyone, brave and shrewd and assertive and just. As a Muggle-born witch, Hermione faces marginalization because of her birth and sex, but her concern about oppression extends beyond her own experience. Chally Kacelnik at Bitch wrote that Hermione “cares about social justice, as particularly embodied in her commitment to house elf rights where most of the wizarding world wouldn’t think twice about their status”.

But Hermione is not just a reflection of the wonderful things about feminism. In her work on behalf of the equality of magical people, Hermione often flaunts her human privilege and unintentionally enforces the oppression of the house-elves, giants, goblins, trolls, andcentaurs she claims to support.  In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in particular, Hermione ignores or minimizes house-elf and non-human magical beings’ opinions and autonomy, though she claims to have their best interest at heart. With SPEW, Hermione participates in the grand feminist tradition of devaluing, disregarding and silencing oppressed classes while centering herself and her opinions on their marginalization…”

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Well, this certainly was an interesting piece of text. It was very obviously well-thought out, considered, researched, and reviewed. It made me consider and re-consider, like any good text would. However, I do have a few serious issues with the piece as a whole, or perhaps the author? No personal matter, but perhaps her tone, or how she chose to present or showcase certain things.

Let me first start by addressing the title. I find it to be an incredible poor choice, and I’m not sure if it’s purpose was too just have a little extra sting and zing, but not only do I believe it is a complete exaggeration of an I accuracy at that, it seems to undermine herself and The feminist character in question, Hermoine Granger.

At one point in the article the author writes, “Hermoine participates in the grand feminist tradition of devaluing, disregarding and silencing oppressed classes while centering herself and her opinion on their marginalization”. Wow. This was incredibly confusing to me, because my understanding is that the author is herself a feminist, not too mention she was praising Hermoine’s actions and attitude moment s before. Now, I don’t live in a rainbow up in the clouds; I know I’m not perfect; I know feminists (being human after all) are not perfect - and I’m not trying to say we are, or avoid self-criticism and reflection. But seriously, what the hell is that? Yikes. Upon first reading that portion of the text, and did a doube-take thinking I must have miss-read something or been confused Alas, I did not, and was not, which now does leave me in fact, very confused.

there are more than a few instances where privilege, inequality, and exploitation are discussed. I found a lot of the points to be interesting, but once again, the tone, and some of the logic seemed unapologetically accusatory and flawed. It was not once or twice I felt like this, but at least a doze times during my read-through of the text. The author seemed to question all, if not most, of Hermoine’s motives after unveiling that she at times thought perhaps in her own best interest before others, or felt compelled to take charge when perhaps she was out of turn. These may be flaws, but they are not slights of character.

The piece fails to address many of her fascinating strengths, what makes her such a rare and unique, intelligent and witty, strong and beautiful young feminist character that we so rarely have the luxury of seeing on the big screen.