JK Rowling TERFing her legacy into the bin

[Jollity]

There is a character (Mad-eye Moody) who is an amputee and has a missing eye. The eye is remedied magically with a magic glass eye that can see through walls, but he continues to use a wooden leg (in the shape of a griffin's claw, if I remember correctly) which is never shown to have any magical properties. Since the books also show that bones can be grown back magically, I can only assume he keeps the prosthetic for the look of it.

I used to be in the Harry Potter fandom about ten to fifteen years ago, but mostly lost interest after the last book. But even then, I could see that the world building doesn't stand up to a lot of scrutiny.

[apopheniac]

I used to be in the Harry Potter fandom about ten to fifteen years ago, but mostly lost interest after the last book. But even then, I could see that the world building doesn't stand up to a lot of scrutiny.

I think that's why opinion turned on her a little when she kept releasing bits of worldbuilding without any context.

As far as glasses, it's easy enough to figure that magic is a machete when you need a scalpel. Unfortunately, then other aspects of worldbuilding don't make any sense, but it is after all a series for small children.

[phantom_power]

What, I have to go and read all the Harry Potter books before I'm allowed to have an opinion? I saw a bit of the first film, I got the general idea of it.

Clearly not

[touchingcloth]

What? I suspect you're thinking of the 1950s, and even then more women went out to work than you'd think.

No, I was thinking of the right era. I didn't mean to suggest that all or even most women were housewives in the 80s (though reading it back I can see that that's a fair interpretation), more that it was more of an acceptable thing then than now, if for no other reason than salaries relative to house prices meant it was still possible for a lot of families to have a single breadwinner, with the culture meaning that was more likely to be the man in heterosexual couples.

Based on why my mum does these days, I bet if my parents had been able to afford to shop me off to boarding school in the late 80s and 90s she'd have been doing a lot of voluntary work rather than childrearing; Molly Weasley seems to be always slaving away in the kitchen or marshalling the kids, when if magic were real there wouldn't be so much need for that, you'd think. Though it's true that we only really see her during school holidays when all the kids are back home, so maybe she had a different life the other 9 months of the year.

[touchingcloth]

What, I have to go and read all the Harry Potter books before I'm allowed to have an opinion? I saw a bit of the first film, I got the general idea of it.

Clearly not

Yup - there's plenty wrong with the books, but the idea that they're "about worshipping teachers and authority" is just wrong. I'm not a fan of the films, but even with the differences from the books I can't think of any moments where the films could be accused of that specifically rather than just being shite in general.

I think it's fair to say that with the books and films being set in a boarding school they don't exactly smash down the establishment which exists in the real world, but then would anyone accuse Molesworth of worshipping teachers and authority?

[earl_sleek]

I fucking wish Molesworth was a massive franchise on a par with Potter who is uterly wet and a weed.

[touchingcloth]

Molesworth would have been a sukcess on a par with Potter if the world building were better.

[Ferris]

I fucking wish Molesworth was a massive franchise on a par with Potter who is uterly wet and a weed.

chiz chiz chiz

[idunnosomename]

any fule kno transwomen are women

[Poirots BigGarlickyCorpse]

It'd be a lot more interesting if the top wizards had rules about how far magic doctors can go when using magic to heal people

like they have a list of what you're not allowed to cure so as to keep wizard doctors from just resurrecting the dead

or to square "we can cure anything with magic" with not making the muggle world AIDS and cancer-free

or just to keep their existence a secret, no miracle cure if the normies know you're terribly injured/sick

"sorry mate your leg got mangled in front of a bunch of non-wizards, good luck with your new peg"

[Endicott]

No, I was thinking of the right era. I didn't mean to suggest that all or even most women were housewives in the 80s (though reading it back I can see that that's a fair interpretation), more that it was more of an acceptable thing then than now, if for no other reason than salaries relative to house prices meant it was still possible for a lot of families to have a single breadwinner, with the culture meaning that was more likely to be the man in heterosexual couples.

I don't think that was true either though. While I agree that poverty is more rife now, I don't think there was a time in the 80s where families didn't need two incomes. My Mum, for example, married in 1960, the only time she didn't work was when my brother and I were pre-school. I think the stay-at-home woman is and always has been something of a myth, unless you are very well off indeed.

Drifting wildly off topic though. To bring it back slightly, her character is a madly out of place stereotype. I'd attempt to say more about her but I've barely watched those films. I think you were correct before you started honing in on reasons.

A bigger question is why the fuck a character like Mrs Weasley is a housewife rather than ok gainful employment - all the cooking and chores are done magically, yet she's a harried kept woman.

[touchingcloth]

I don't think that was true either though. While I agree that poverty is more rife now, I don't think there was a time in the 80s where families didn't need two incomes. My Mum, for example, married in 1960, the only time she didn't work was when my brother and I were pre-school. I think the stay-at-home woman is and always has been something of a myth, unless you are very well off indeed.

Maybe my upbringing is more unusual than I thought, but my mum didn't work when I was a kid until I was secondary school age, or not too long before it, and even then it was for pin money rather than out of necessity. We were comfortably off, but definitely not very well off - dad was an NHS nurse without so much as an A level to his name. I remember other kids' mums being in the same position, though I'm getting well into anecdote territory now so probably best to just call Mrs Weasley a mad curiosity.

[marquis_de_sad]

There's already a thread for Harry Potter stuff: https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,80724.90.html

[Puce Moment]

There's already a thread for Harry Potter stuff: https://www.cookdandbombd.co.uk/forums/index.php/topic,80724.90.html

Thank you. Very much.

[jamiefairlie]

Maybe my upbringing is more unusual than I thought, but my mum didn't work when I was a kid until I was secondary school age, or not too long before it, and even then it was for pin money rather than out of necessity. We were comfortably off, but definitely not very well off - dad was an NHS nurse without so much as an A level to his name. I remember other kids' mums being in the same position, though I'm getting well into anecdote territory now so probably best to just call Mrs Weasley a mad curiosity.

Yeah same here. My parents were both from really poor Glasgow families and mum always stayed home as did all our relatives and neighbours, very rare to see a working women then (early 70s). In fact it was the norm for women to be sacked when they got married then.

[king_tubby]

Heh at the Hard Times.

https://thehardtimes.net/harddrive/pottermore-update-requires-picture-of-genitals-before-confirming-gender/

[djtrees]

And look who's wearing it.

https://twitter.com/NookaoftheNooks/status/1271845580537544705

And my sister :(
I've been wondering about how to approach her about her TERFing but considering I haven't really spoken to her for about 7-8 years I probably don't have to. It's a bit weird though to see someone geg into it, who is ostensibly a left wing, right on type. What is it that first attracted you to being shitty to people with different genitals? I often wonder to myself. 

[Buelligan]

Heh at the Hard Times.

https://thehardtimes.net/harddrive/pottermore-update-requires-picture-of-genitals-before-confirming-gender/

I enjoyed that very much, thank you.

[dissolute ocelot]

Yeah same here. My parents were both from really poor Glasgow families and mum always stayed home as did all our relatives and neighbours, very rare to see a working women then (early 70s). In fact it was the norm for women to be sacked when they got married then.

According to the ONS, the percentage women working has risen from 53% in 1971 to 73% in 2020. This doesn't appear much of a change, but there are probably significant differences in some groups. Here's a report by the IFS with similar figures; apparently statisticians only differentiated part-time from full-time since 1985, and from 1985 to 2017 the proportion of women in full-time work increased from 29% to 44%.

Compared to a lot of kids books of their era, which were about heroin and homosexuality, the Harry Potter books were very square. On a lighter note, would you let a wizard zap your eye with their magic wand? If so, which one?

[Buelligan]

I think I would, only if the wizard produced a well-lit and attested photograph of their own genitals beforehand.  One cannot be too careful where eyesight is concerned.

It would be my left eye.

[Marner and Me]

There is a character (Mad-eye Moody) who is an amputee and has a missing eye. The eye is remedied magically with a magic glass eye that can see through walls, but he continues to use a wooden leg (in the shape of a griffin's claw, if I remember correctly) which is never shown to have any magical properties. Since the books also show that bones can be grown back magically, I can only assume he keeps the prosthetic for the look of it.

I used to be in the Harry Potter fandom about ten to fifteen years ago, but mostly lost interest after the last book. But even then, I could see that the world building doesn't stand up to a lot of scrutiny.

Dark magic can't be cured.

[Marner and Me]

I've never been in a school with houses, but both of my secondary schools had forms, those being the classes we were in for things like the register at the start of the day before going on to our subject lessons. In earlier years subject lessons were usually sat with our form, but later in school life the forms would mix together into classes where there were ability-based tiers, so you'd have say top, middle and bottom maths sets with a mix students from all forms within them, whereas something like a sex education lesson would be sat with your own form.

All of that is true for both of my secondary schools, are there people who didn't do the same thing functionally and have a fixed group of people for taking register with before splitting up for subjects?

My first secondary school was a grammar and even though we didn't call them houses, like at your school, Sheepy, we had red, blue, silver and gold forms, with a coloured tie to go with it - so I was TC in the blue form with a blue tie.

My second secondary school was a state comp, and the setup was identical - fixed groups of kids we sat with through register - though without the ties, and the forms just being named after the teacher who took our register.

I guess the main difference was that the coloured forms followed you by name through the school, so I was in blue form for multiple school years even though I had several different form tutors on that time. In my second school I was always with the same people across years, but we didn't have a set name as our tutor would change each year.

EDIT: a big difference with my coloured forms from proper houses was the lack of cross-year stuff. There was another blue form in the year above me, but there weren't any events where multiple years of blue students competed against the other colours.

We had forms aswell, so you'd have a form tutor and as per you'd do year 7-9 I think as a form, then once you'd been graded, smarts and thickos you'd goto form in the morning, get registered and then you were on a time table to goto your lessons mixing with kids from other forms. We had interform football, and the girls had interform netball, once a year.

We had a record of 4 form tutors in 5 years. Forms were like 7TA so 7 is the year you were then TA is the teachers initials.

[king_tubby]

LGB Alliance come out against gay marriage.

https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1273678960115810304

[Mister Six]

Fuck me.

[Wonderful Butternut]

LGB Alliance come out against gay marriage.

https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1273678960115810304

#canwedropitnowplease #notabigdeal

Maybe there's context on those hashtags that I'm missing, but that's just funny. "No! It's not homophobic to be against gay marraige, something which is an absolutely massive deal for gay people. Stop talking about it!"

[canadagoose]

LGB Alliance come out against gay marriage.

https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1273678960115810304

Whoever could have predicted this? Hmmmmm...

[phantom_power]

According to the ONS, the percentage women working has risen from 53% in 1971 to 73% in 2020. This doesn't appear much of a change,

That is a pretty big change. It is almost a 40% increase

[idunnosomename]

#DontWanttoAlienateBaronessNicholson #BiggestTERFintheLords #PlacatingtheRichandPowerfulisFineandDandy

[Mister Six]

Looks like the LGB Alliance tweet has been deleted. Hope one of the LGBT sites gives it a proper write-up.

[evilcommiedictator]

JK Rowling really having the best admirers, the TERF stuff really working out for her
https://www.washingtonblade.com/2020/06/18/senate-vote-on-equality-act-blocked-by-republican-citing-j-k-rowling/

Following the historic win for LGBTQ rights at the U.S. Supreme Court, Senate Democrats pushed Thursday for a vote on Equality Act to codify and expand those protections — but were thwarted by an Oklahoma Republican who cited "Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling in remarks against moving forward with the bill.
.....
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), however, objected to the legislation, effectively filibustering it, after citing Rowling, who has come under fire for a recent essay widely regarded as transphobic that distinguished sex from gender identity.

"We don't want anyone to be discriminated against, anyone, but we can do this in a way that accommodates everyone, and that we can actually work towards agreement," Lankford said. "To say in the words of J.K. Rowling this past week where she wrote, 'all I'm asking, all I want is for similar empathy, similar understanding to be extended to the many millions of women whose sole crime is wanting their concerns to be heard without receiving threats or abuse.' Let's work together to get equality. This bill does not do it in this form."

The Equality Act was insufficient, Lankford said, because it makes no exemption for religious liberty and privacy issues, such as concerns from individuals who want to have a TSA agent of the same sex for pat downs at the airport.