The Sociology of Harry Potter: 22 Enchanting Essays on the Wizarding World

by Unknown

  Being a woman participant in the sport of Quidditch doesn’t relegate one to second-class involvement in the institution at the school or professional level. For example, both Ginny and Cho played at the most crucial position on the team, the Seeker, alongside Harry, Draco Malfoy, and Cedric Diggory. Also, both Ginny and Oliver Wood go professional after school. Ginny follows what in the Muggle world is a traditional male athlete career path, becoming a sports correspondent after she retires from playing. This illustrates further how, unlike in the Muggle world, Quidditch is watched, played, and enjoyed by everyone regardless of gender.

  Hate Groups

  Despite the gender inclusiveness of Quidditch as an institution, one nevertheless notices that here are no girls on the Slytherin House team. It is interesting to note that the Slytherin House, a House known for Dark wizards and corruption, is the only House team that has no female players.

  The Slytherin House is closely affiliated the Death Eaters. Voldemort’s charming society appears to be very traditional in terms of patriarchy. There are only two female members of the Death Eaters: Bellatrix Lestrange and Alecto Carrow. After Voldemort’s initial downfall, it was Bellatrix who led the group responsible for torturing Neville Longbottom’s parents while looking for information on Voldemort. In the Second Wizarding War, Bellatrix was present during every battle. Bellatrix was so high-up in the ranks of the Death Eaters that Voldemort trusted her to guard a Horcrux and the sword of Gryffindor (which could be used to destroy Horcruxes) in her Gringotts’ vault; and during a Death Eater meeting at Malfoy Manor, Voldemort comments that her opinion “means a great deal” (DH 9). However, despite her position of leadership among the Death Eaters, Bellatrix is blindly devoted to her male master, Voldemort, and dedicated her entire existence to his service. When Narcissa tries to help Draco in the task designated to him by Voldemort (to kill Dumbledore), Bellatrix shows scorn and comments, “If I had sons, I would be glad to give them up to the service of the Dark Lord!” (HBP 35). This complete subservience falls in line with the overtly patriarchal aspect of the Death Eaters.

  Although Bellatrix Lestrange is considered Voldemort’s most powerful follower, his “best Lieutenant” (DH 737), her female presence seems to be the exception to the rule within the Death Eaters. Aside from Bellatrix, the only other female Death Eater is the considerably less powerful Alecto Carrow. Alecto was appointed to teach at Hogwarts as opposed to a more involved position in the war, and she was always joined with her brother, Amycus. Outside of Alecto and Bellatrix, we see a strictly male group of Death Eaters. Their gender ideology and practice, it appears, is for Death Eaters to be male and to have pureblood housewives who are quite passive a la Narcissa Malfoy.

  Patriarchy in the wizarding world appears to be associated with corruption and evil. This organization has many parallels to hate groups in the Muggle world, like the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis. Both of these groups were overwhelmingly patriarchal and excluded women from high level participation and seats of leadership. When women were involved, they were relegated to “traditional” roles (i.e., being the mother or wife of a member). And yet even when it comes to hate groups the wizarding world shows more equality than the Muggle world, for neither the KKK nor the Nazis ever had a significant female member like Bellatrix.

  Conclusion

  The wizarding world isn’t a perfect world of gender equality; but the social construction of gender in that society appears to be more progressive and accommodating of gender diversity than the Muggle world. Their social institutions are strikingly more gender egalitarian than ours. Females and non-traditionally masculine men have had significant roles in magical society for ages, with women working, competing, and politicking alongside men for centuries. The institutions of the wizarding world – particularly educational and sport – appear to be non-discriminatory and fully egalitarian in regards to gender; and other institutions, such as the government and even hate groups, are moving closer to structural gender equality faster than their Muggle counterparts.

  References

  Clay-Warner, Jody, Jennifer McMahon-Howard and Linda Renzulli. 2009. “Criminalizing Spousal Rape: The Diffusion of Legal Reforms.” Sociological Perspectives. 52:505-531.

  “History of Women’s Soccer.” Retrieved 6 Aug. 2011. (http://www.soccer-fans-info.com/history-of-women-soccer.html).

  Rowling, J.K. 2007. Interview at Carnegie Hall

  Rowling, J.K. 2006. Official Website (http://www.jkrowling.com)

  Schwyzer, Hugo. 2011. “How Men’s Rights Activists Get Feminism Wrong.” Retrieved 6 Aug. 2011.(http://goodmenproject.com/ethics-values/how-the-mens-rights-activists-get-feminism-wrong/).

  Sittenfeld, Curtis. 2001. “Your Life as a Girl.” Pp. 3-10 in Listen Up: Voices From the Next Feminist Generation. Edited by B. Findlen. Emeryville, CA: Seal Press.

  “Women Heads of State.” Center for Asia-Pacific Women in Politics. 4 March 2009. Retrieved 2 Jan. 2011. (http://www.capwip.org/participation/womenheadofstate.html).

  “Wanagoballwitme?”

  Inter ‘Racial’ Dating at Hogwarts

  Jenn Sims

  Whether encouraged as it is in Brazil or outlawed as it was in South Africa and the United States, race mixing occurs all over the world. But the notion of races “mixing” rests on the assumption that pure and separate races exist. According to evolutionary biologists, however, there is no biological basis for the division of humans into racial groups (Graves 2001). Genetics research agrees (Fujimura et al. 2008). Racial groups, therefore, are created by humans based on perceived ancestry and/or phenotype; and the mantra that race is socially constructed is a keystone in sociological discourse. By “socially constructed” sociologists mean that racial categories are not reflective of natural divisions among humans but instead are products of sociohistorical processes and projects of differentiation (Omi and Winant 1994).

  “Race” can be defined as “a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and interests by referring to different types of human bodies” (Omi and Winant 1994: 55). In the United Kingdom there are six major “races”: white, black, Asian (e.g., Indian, Pakistani), Chinese, mixed race, and “other.” And despite there being no laws prohibiting it, most Muggles here and elsewhere date and marry someone from their own race. According to the 2001 UK Census, only about two per cent of marriages are between people of different races, with white/black and white/mixed couples being the most prevalent (Office of National Statistics 2005). These mixed race couples are important to sociologists because it is theorized that increased intermarriage indicates increased structural integration of racial minorities into the mainstream and is evidence of declining prejudicial attitudes toward those of a different race (Gordon 1964).

  While only a tiny portion of Muggle Britain engages in exogamy, i.e., dating and marriage outside one’s group, interracial dating and marriage is extremely common in the British wizarding world. For example, at the Yule Ball held the year Hogwarts hosted the Triwizard Tournament there was a plethora of mixed race couples. Among the four Champions, two crossed racial borders in selecting dates. Cedric Diggory, a white wizard, attended with Cho Chang, a Chinese witch. Harry Potter, a white wizard, secured a last minute date with Parvati Patil, an Indian witch. Parvati’s twin sister Padma’s (reluctant) attendance with Ron Weasley marked a third white/Asian Yule Ball couple. Glancing around the Great Hall, one could see other mixed race couples as well. There was a black wizard with an Asian witch and another black wizard with a white witch (HP4). Finally, while black/white couple Angelina Johnson and Fred Weasley at first “were dancing so exuberantly that people around them were backing away in fear of injury” (GOF 420), they could later be seen sweetly slow dancing late into the night (HP4).

  The Yule Ball was a special occasion, but that doesn’t mean that Hogwarts students need an extraordinary event to bring people of different races together romantically. Ginny and Dean, white and black respectively, dated throughout most of her 5th/his 6th school yea
r. After Cedric’s tragic death, Cho interracially dated Harry and then Michael Corner. And years after their Quidditch playing days, Angelina and George Weasley (no doubt bonded over mutual grieving at the loss of Fred during the Battle of Hogwarts) married across racial lines.

  Race and Racialization

  With so many witches and wizards ignoring race in matters of the heart, do we conclude that the wizarding world is a color blind utopia in which everyone is judged, not by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character? Not quite. While the differences among people that Muggles consider indicative of race is not a means of demarcation among witches and wizards, magic is. In other words, magic in the wizarding world is racialized. Races are formed when sociohistorical processes divide humans into groups based on some particular feature that is assumed to signify an intrinsic essence that makes people different, and some considered better, than others (Omi and Winant 1994). In the British Muggle world, the human features used for racial grouping are geography-based biology/genetics (i.e., birth place of one’s parents, grandparents, etc.) and phenotype (i.e., skin color, hair texture, etc.). However, these are not failproof criteria for assigning racial group membership. For example, according to the racial logic in Muggle Britain, a person with one white and one black parent is racially mixed. However, if this person is dark skinned and another person does not know her/his parents, s/he is considered and, more importantly, treated as racially black instead. In other words, social factors such as others’ knowledge of one’s family, often more so than appearance or some biological or genetic “essence” from that family, are important in determining race.

  The construction of magical race does not utilize phenotype like Muggle race, but it does (purport to) utilize biology/genetics. Wizarding categorization is based on “amount” of magical blood, i.e., a particular human feature that is assumed to signify an intrinsic essence that makes people different, and some considered better, than others. This indicates that magic has been racialized. In the wizarding world, there are three major magical “races.” As Ron and Hagrid explained to Harry and Hermione following an incident in which Draco called her “Mudblood,” there are “purebloods,” i.e., witches and wizards with no Muggle heritage; “half-bloods,” i.e., witches and wizards with a mix of Muggle and magical heritage; and “Muggle-borns,” i.e., witches and wizards like Hermione who come from non-magical families. If one includes Squibs and Muggles, there are five magical “races.” However, as with the Muggle construction of race, the use of “intrinsic” characteristics for racial grouping is illogical because the construction of race is actually contingent upon wide-spread knowledge of one’s biological and social background.

  Dean Thomas is a perfect example of the social, not biological, nature of racial classification. His mother and step-father are both Muggles. His biological father left when he was small, and the family does not know if he was a wizard or not. Dean, therefore, is racially ambiguous. By the racial criteria of the wizarding world, he is either half-blood (if his father was a wizard) or Muggle-born (if his father was not). It is not known. Nevertheless, Dean is considered and treated as a Muggle-born because both of his “parents,” even though he is only biologically related to one, are Muggles. Dean’s case shows that non-blood relationships and public knowledge (or lack thereof) of a person’s family figure prominently into the construction of race.

  Lord Voldemort is another example of the social nature of racial classification. Tom Riddle, Jr. has one magical and one Muggle parent. By wizarding logic this ought to make him racially half-blood. Yet as a powerful wizard, descended from the famous Salazar Slytherin, and one who “pruned” his family tree by killing his Muggle relatives, he is accorded all of the privileges and status of a pureblood. When Harry said his name to a group of Death Eaters while in the Department of Mysteries, Bellatrix yelled, “You dare speak his name?! You filthy half-blood!” (HP5). Yet, as Harry reminded them, “Did you know he’s a half-blood too?.... Yeah, his mother was a witch but his dad was a Muggle” (OOTP 784). The fact that the Death Eaters, pureblood fanatics like Bella, and most in the wizarding world chose to ignore this fact and accorded Voldemort pureblood status is evidence that social, often more so than strictly biological, factors lay at the heart of constructions of race. Blood in the wizarding world, like skin color in the Muggle world, does not indicate natural biological/genetic divisions but is used as a justification for social divisions and hierarchies.

  Before continuing, it is important to mention that there is a difference in acceptance of racial classifications, however (il)logical, and acceptance of a racial hierarchy based on them. While the latter may be limited to pureblood extremists, racists and Death Eaters, the former – acceptance of the idea of there being different races – is not. Ron says that calling a Muggle-born witch or wizard “dirty blood” and considering them less than purebloods is ridiculous; and many others agree. But no one says that the idea of the existence of distinctive magic races in the first place is ridiculous. The Longbottoms and Weasleys consider themselves purebloods and consider others to be members of different races, even though they reject the Death Eater ideology of pureblood supremacy. For example, during the Second Wizarding War when he learned from Lupin that Muggle-borns were being rounded up and imprisoned, Ron asked “What if purebloods and half-bloods swear a Muggle-born’s part of their family? I’ll tell everyone Hermione’s my cousin” (DH 209). While a sweet gesture that conveyed his strong feelings of protectiveness of Hermione, his offer nonetheless indicates that he too believes that he and Hermione (and for that case Harry as a half-blood) are members of different races. Hermione buys into the wizarding world’s construction of race as well, identifying herself as Muggle-born (e.g., HBP 185) and even attempting to re-claim the racial slur “Mudblood” (DH 489). Likewise, many half-blood witches and wizards accept the social construction of magical race and identify with their ascribed status. Remember that Harry told the Death Eaters that Voldemort was “a half-blood too” (OOTP 784, emphasis added), demonstrating that he, Harry, considers himself a half-blood. Others, such as Seamus Finnigan who identifies as “half and half” (HP1) and Severus Snape who daubed himself the “Half-Blood Prince” (HBP 604), also accept the wizarding world’s racial categories, even if not always the hierarchical ordering.

  Mixing Race

  In the Muggle world, reactionary responses to mixed race couples have ranged from curious stares to verbal intimidation and abuse to familial rejection and disownment (Root 1999). These same responses occur in the wizarding world, not towards black/white or white/Asian couples, but towards couples that mix by the above discussed magical races. Returning to the Yule Ball, during the Champions’ procession into the Great Hall people were shocked to see Hermione Grainger with Viktor Krum, a white couple, while paying no negative attention to Cedric with Cho or Harry with Parvati, both mixed race couples. This is because in the wizarding world Hermione and Krum are what is considered a mixed race couple. She is Muggle-born and he is pureblood. Students stared and gaped “in unflattering disbelief” at Hermione with Krum; and his female admirers gave her “looks of deepest loathing” (GOF 414). In addition to being surprised that a popular athlete would date a bookworm, and at how different Hermione looked with hair and makeup and no heavy bag of school supplies, students focused on this particular couple no doubt due to amazement that someone of a high status race like Victor would select a date who is a member of a lower status race.

  Viktor’s Durmstrang high-master Igor Karkaroff was especially displeased with his star pupil’s choice of a date. Interrupting Krum and Hermione’s dinner conversation, Karkaroff joked “with a laugh that didn’t reach his eyes” for Krum to not go “giving away” information about the school lest Hermione “know exactly where to find us” (GOF 417). Dumbledore commented upon this “secrecy” saying, “one would almost think you didn’t want visitors” (ibid). Yet the fact is that Dumbledore’s assessment was correct; Muggle-borns like Hermione
were exactly who Karkaroff did not want at Durmstrang (GOF 165).

  While Hermione and Krum attended the Yule Ball together and remained friends thereafter, other students had longer term relationships. Ginny and Dean, as mentioned earlier, would be considered a mixed race couple in the Muggle world; however, to the wizarding world the fact that he is black and she is white never drew negative attention or prejudice. Unlike some Muggle black men who date white women, Dean was not subjected to threats of violence from white students or charges of racial disloyalty from black students for dating Ginny. To the contrary, Ginny’s brother Ron answered Harry’s query as to what Ginny saw in Dean with “He’s brilliant” (HP6) while having instantly declared he didn’t like her previous, white boyfriend Michael at first sight of him (OOTP 348). Ginny, for her part, was not called derogatory names like “Ni---r lover” or shunned by friends and family like white Muggle women who date black men in the UK and elsewhere sometimes experience.

  Yet while Muggle notions of race were irrelevant to their relationship, like with Krum and Hermione, the fact that a pureblood (Ginny) was dating a Muggle-born (Dean) was relevant. As a magically interracial couple, they drew both the attention and criticism that they might have received in the Muggle world for being a black/white couple. For example, discussing Ginny’s inclusion in the Slug Club with Draco and Blaze Zabini, Pansy Parkinson noted that “a lot of boys like her” and that even difficult-to-please Blaze “think[s] she’s good looking,” (HBP 150). Zabini, a pureblood black wizard, responded – not that he wouldn’t date a white woman – but that he “wouldn’t touch a filthy little blood traitor like her whatever she looked like” (ibid). These sentiments suggest that Ginny’s history of associating with and dating those outside her magic race has “spoiled” her previous purity. Just like Muggle white women who date outside their race are sometimes socially “demoted and became untouchable in the eyes of other whites” (Root 1999: 49), Ginny suffered a similar defamation of character by others of her magical race for interracially dating.