A plea for tolerance?

[mary-j-59.livejournal.com]

Not sure quite what to call this - it's a comment I made on an earlier thread, where it was pretty deeply buried. I'm posting it as a separate comment because it's something I feel pretty strongly about.

Yes, I know - this is a sporking community. We are making fun of the Harry Potter books, and, at times, some of us can get quite irate in our discussions. But - please, please, can we refrain from getting irate towards J.K. Rowling?

Here's what I mean: I'm really not comfortable discussing the character of an actual human being just because I find her books frustrating. I'm a bit of a structuralist. The author is dead once a book has been published, and that cuts two ways. The author is no more privileged in his/her interpretation than any other reader, because the work belongs to the readers now. And there are limits to what we can extrapolate about an author's belief, personality, etc, based on the work s/he has written.

As angry as I get at the awful, mixed messages in these books, I think we must never forget that a real, vulnerable human being wrote them. It isn't right or fair to trash her while trashing the books. (Though I like to think we're not trashing them, but subjecting them to rigorous criticism!) And I'm really not comfortable with speculating about her family life and personality based on the words she's written. Though I do believe all real art is "true" in a deep sense, and reveals the heart of its creator, I still think the art has, and must have, its own validity. You see what I mean?

I hope to be a published author one day. Though I neither want nor expect Rowling's level of fame, I wouldn't like it if anyone psycho-analyzed me on the basis of my stories. I don't think any of us would - and many of us do some type of creative work. Would we like to be called "stupid cows" because a reader found our work stupid? The person is not the work.

So I think it's fine to discuss the image of God in Rowling's stories. I think it's fine to question the heavy use of Christian symbolism given the non-Christian content of the stories. Heck, I've done this myself, repeatedly! It's fine to discuss the mixed messages about race, bullying, authority figures, and so much more. But I'd rather not discuss the psychology and personal life of the woman who wrote the stories. J.K. Rowling is a woman trying to write, and raise a family, and live, in this real world. We shouldn't forget that, no matter how angry her books make us.

Comments

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

I can't speak for anyone else, but since you've brought up the Ginny Weasley debacle yourself, this is my issue: calling her The Girl Who Dates is sexist, full stop. It's a form of slut-shaming and I cannot in good conscience allow it to pass without calling it out for the inappropriate attack on female sexuality it is.

This stuff matters. Whenever a girl or woman comes forward with an accusation of rape, it's almost inevitable that people will drag her past relationships into the issue to discredit and attack her. Did she have sex with her rapist before? Did she have sex with anyone before? With how many other people? How many can she have sex with before we can just call her out as the slut she is? Yeah, she says she'd never gone all the way before this, but she'd gone out with guys before and ******* always lie about it the next day, yo.

Holding up a woman's sexuality or sexual or romantic desire as a point of derision reinforces that dynamic. It feeds into the cultural belief that woman can't legitimately have such desires of their own. If they do, and if they dare to assert that they do, then they're considered free game to be attacked, verbally and physically. She was asking for it, after all.

Yes, Ginny dated three boys in canon. One of those boys was black. There is, in fact, a technical term for that: miscegenation. But if you were to start calling her Ginny Weasley, The Miscegenist, I'd call you out for the racism of that statement, too. A statement being technically factual doesn't make it appropriate - or relevant.

As long as all parties are fully informed and freely consenting, it is no one's business who is going out with whom. It's not even anyone's business if someone, regardless of gender, goes out and has orgies every night with different partners as long as everyone involved understands and consents to the situation.

If you want to criticize Ginny for lying to her boyfriends by pretending to be interested when she only ever wanted Harry, fine. I'm right with you. That's a form of emotional abuse and it's unacceptable whether the perpetrator is male or female. If you want to criticize Rowling's writing and shallow characterization, by all means, carry on. There are many, many problems with the character of Ginny Weasley and Rowling's abilities and choices as an author. You don't need to lean on Rape Culture to justify a dislike of either.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

- since you've brought up the Ginny Weasley debacle yourself -

I just thought it was a bit amusing, how some people foamed at the mouth for daring to insult (in their eyes) a fictitious character while others cast slurs on the real-life author without a qualm.

Now, as an overall qualifier covering all of this serial-dater stuff I want to make it clear that I personally never thought that Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione were having sex. I happily read in accordance with the overall intent, customised to Rowling's child readership, that kissing was as far as romantic relations went. Unlike some fans I didn't go looking in the white space between the lines for adult themes in the HP books.

I mention this because I think you, and others, go overboard in your attacks/reactions because you're extrapolating beyond what Rowling wrote. With at least two exaggerations that *I'm* not comfortable with in just your comment here:

* a think calling a girl a 'slut' for merely dating/kissing a series of boys is going too far. 'Slut' is more appropriate for a girl who sleeps with a series of boys; at least that's how I see it;

* miscegenation, according to dictionary dot com, concerns 'marriage or cohabitation between two people of different races'. Which is beyond my own impression of what Ginny and Dean were getting up to.

So I think you have to understand from the start that I'm not looking at this with quite your fervour, because I'm not taking Rowling's books and writing as far beyond what was written as what you are doing. Which is part of your problem with what I *am* saying.

A statement being technically factual doesn't make it appropriate - or relevant.

No, but it certainly makes it a valid and eligible candidate for consideration as an appropriate or relevant point for an issue under discussion. I'm not sure what you're trying to say there. In a debate, if you can prove something is NOT technically factual, then you can throw it out. If you prove it IS factual then (a) you've helped your opposition and (b) you still have to make an effort to prove that it's not applicable.

As long as all parties are fully informed and freely consenting, it is no one's business who is going out with whom.

I guess you should tell Ron Weasley that. And Harry. And Hermione, who kept track of Ginny's romantic dalliances. I'm just a reader. They were the characters keeping tabs on Ginny's dating.

[oryx_leucoryx]

The word 'slut' is inappropriate, period. A woman can have sex with bazzillions of people, and it matters nothing regarding her character, morality or anything else. Because sex in itself is not morally 'iffy'. Cheating, coercing, getting people in bed on false pretenses etc are different issues.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

Slut-Shaming 101

First, let's get some definitions down so we're all on the same page.

Slut-shaming in no way requires that a girl in fact be promiscuous. A virgin can be slut-shamed. A rape-victim can be and nearly always is slut-shamed. From Finally, a Feminism 101 Blog

Put in the most simple terms, slut-shaming happens when a person “publicly or privately [insults] a woman because she expressed her sexuality in a way that does not conform with patriarchal expectations for women” (Kat, Slut-Shaming vs. Rape Jokes). It is enabled by the idea that a woman who carries the stigma of being a slut — ie. an “out-of-control, trampy female” — is “not worth knowing or caring about” (Tanenbaum, p. 240).

If all negative connotations are removed from the word, a “slut” is simply a person, most often a woman, who has had sex with multiple partners. In societies where the only acceptable expression of female sexuality is within a marriage (usually for the purpose of having children), engaging in sex with more than one partner is enough to justify the label of “slut” and the slut-shaming that comes with it. In societies such as the United States where it is not uncommon for people to have several relationships throughout their lives, for the most part it is no longer considered a requirement for a woman to wait until marriage before engaging in sex. However, this shift in sexual mores has simply shifted the goal posts for “proper” female sexuality from marriage to “the attitude of the girl, her emotional feeling for the boy she’s with and her feelings about sex as an expression of love” (Taunenbaum, p. 67). (Emphasis added.)

http: (slash) (slash) finallyfeminism101(dot) wordpress (dot) com/2010/04/04/what-is-slut-shaming/

In a similar vein, rape culture is

a complex of beliefs that encourages male sexual aggression and supports violence against women. It is a society where violence is seen as sexy and sexuality as violent. In a rape culture, women perceive a continuum of threatened violence that ranges from sexual remarks to sexual touching to rape itself. A rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm.

In a rape culture both men and women assume that sexual violence is a fact of life, inevitable as death or taxes. This violence, however, is neither biologically nor divinely ordained. Much of what we accept as inevitable is in fact the expression of values and attitudes that can change.

http: (slash) (slash) finallyfeminism101 (dot) wordpress (dot) com/2009/10/19/rape-culture-101/

Slut-shaming reinforces rape culture by propping up the belief that sex is something that is done to women, not something they can ever legitimately participate in or initiate on equal footing. It further perpetuates the violence of the system by targeting for abuse those women who do try to assert control over their own bodies and normalizing the violence of that response through moralizing and social pressure.

(I strongly recommend reading both page in full. They give a good overview of how pernicious and insidious these attitudes are and their poisonous affects on society.)

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

Public Shaming: A Cruel and Unusual Punishment

Public shaming is one of the oldest legal sentences we know of, though the details vary from culture to culture. In ancient Rome a woman convicted of adultery or prostitution was forced to wear a toga instead of a proper stola. In the 17th and 18th centuries in New England, those convicted of adultery were forced to wear a scarlet A on their chest. Use of the stocks as a form of punishment is attested to in the bible, and continued to be used as such through the 17th century.

The main problem with public shaming is this: when you hold someone up to be punished by the public, you are giving each individual member of that public permission to punish that person as harshly or leniently as they see fit. There is no mechanism to even attempt to ensure equity before the law. This is mob justice.

Consider the fates of those sentenced to the stocks. Those who were popular, like Daniel Defoe, were pelted with flowers and made comfortable by an admiring crowd. Most often though, the crowd gathered to ensure the punishment was as miserable as possible. That was the entire point of making it public. The crowd would mock them, insult them, beat them, urinate on them, torment them to the limits of their imaginations and whims. They would throw mud, rotten fruit, excrement, and dead animals at the offender. Some would throw stones and bricks. Sometimes so many threw stones and bricks and other dangerous objects that the offender was maimed or killed.

And that outcome was just fine. If anyone was ever convicted for their part in murdering someone sentenced to the stocks or pillory I've never found an account of it. Because when you turn the administration of justice over to the public, whatever sentence the public carries out, however lenient or cruel, is ipso facto justified and just.

And the problem is worse than just the fickleness of the crowd: when the punishment for deviance is for the populace to make an example of the deviant, then that punishment only works if the crowd makes an example of them. This means that denigrating the convicted is not just a question of personal preference, it is a question of civic duty. A good, upstanding member of the community, in order to maintain that status, is pressured to add their own punishment, and to inflict it with sufficient severity, that they won't be accused themselves of excusing or promoting the convict's misdeeds.

Beyond that, most sentences of shaming didn't and don't have even implied limitations on the time frame in which it may be done like the stocks or pillory do. Those who were branded, or forced to wear the sign of their shame on their person, or attached to their name, were condemned for life. There was no point beyond which they could say that the comment box was closed, all judgments had been finalized, and the sentence completed. For the rest of their lives those who had been convicted in the public court would always be faced with the uncertainty of whether the people they must interact with would punish them further or let them be, or what form that punishment might take if it was inflicted on them anew. Nor would they have recourse for the redress of their own grievances regarding this harassment. It was, after all, their just punishment.

For these reasons among others, public humiliation was outlawed in the U.S. over the 18th and 19th centuries as running afoul of the 8th Amendment's prohibition on cruel and unusual punishments.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

Modern slut-shaming and other modern shame-based approaches toward social control are in some ways worse than those that were legally sanctioned. With the latter, there was a commonly understood definition of the underlying crime. Today, not only the punishment, but the determination of whether someone deserves to be punished, is in the hands of the mob. Once the mob gathers gathers steam, however, it has just as much power and social legitimacy as it did when the stocks were still legal.

Likewise, where in the past a person could theoretically leave their small town where they'd been convicted and start over fresh, in today's social media landscape there is no possibility of escape. Once an image or story spreads through the ether it exists in perpetuity for the entire world to see and pass judgment on.


Lest anyone think these are merely academic concerns, here is a tiny snapshotsof slut-shaming and rape culture as it appears in the 21st century. (TW: Rape, Pedophilia, Self-Harm, Suicide)

*A 21-year-old midshipman claimed she was raped by three Naval Academy football players at a party. Investigators spent over 20 HOURS grilling her over everything from what undergarments she was wearing to how she performs oral sex to what her previous relationships were like. I should hope it would be obvious that none of these questions having anything to do with the issue of whether she was raped on that particular night. It is purely an attack on her character, looking for some excuse to blame the attack on her.

The Washington Post: Military’s handling of sex assault cases on trial at Naval Academy rape hearing


*In the UK, Judge Robert Brown ordered a jury to return a verdict of Not Guilty in a case where 5 men were accused of conspiring to and then carrying out the gang rape of a 24-year-old woman. He ordered this solely on the basis that at one point in the past she wrote that she might someday enjoy trying group sex. “Judge Brown told the jury: 'This case depended on the complainant's credibility.

'Not to put too fine a point on it, her credibility was shot to pieces.'”

BBC News: Men cleared as rape woman's group sex fantasy revealed


*A Missouri woman dancing at a party was filmed by Girls Gone Wild. The Girls Gone Wild crew asked her to remove her top, and you can hear her saying “No” on the original video. At that point a second woman pulled her top down, exposing her breasts. Years later the woman discovered that GGW had published that footage of her being exposed despite her explicit denial of consent. She attempted to sue them for damage to her reputation, but the jury ruled 11-to-1 in GGW's favor, claiming that the implicit consent she gave in attending a party and dancing in front of a camera over-ruled her explicit denial of consent to stripping in front of that camera:

“'Through her actions, she gave implied consent,' O'Brien (the jury foreman) said. 'She was really playing to the camera. She knew what she was doing.'”

St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Missouri woman loses lawsuit over 'Girls Gone Wild’ video

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

Cont'd

*An 11-year-old girl in a small Texas town was gang-raped by at least 17 and possibly as many as 28 men. They threatened to beat or even kill her if she did not comply. There is video evidence of the assault that, as usual, went viral.

In light of these facts, The New York Times felt it appropriate to write that one of the large, unanswered questions raised by this crime was, “how could their young men have been drawn into such an act?”

As if an 11-year-old child was capable of mind-control. As if these men and boys have no responsibility for controlling their own actions.

Residents, when asked about the case, felt the most pertinent details to note were that 1) the girl wore makeup, 2) she dressed 'like a twenty-year-old,' and 3) she had hung out with teenage boys at the playground.

Of all the people interviewed for these articles, only one, was noted to have stated unequivocally that the perpetrators of this crime were the ones who needed to pay.

After the video came to light and arrests started being made, the girl's family started receiving threatening calls. Child Protective Services took the girl into protective custody to prevent retribution.
The New York Times: Vicious Assault Shakes Texas Town

The Houston Chronicle: Cleveland residents still reeling after gang rape of girl, 11


*Amanda Todd was 12 when she was exploring online via webcam with some friends and a predator manipulated her into exposing her breasts for him. A year later he contacted her again and ordered her to perform for him or he'd send the picture he'd taken of her breasts to everyone she knew. She didn't, and he did. The school turned on her, calling her a slut and whore. She fell into extreme anxiety and depression, started cutting herself and doing drugs and alcohol to cope. She had to change schools to get away from the harassment. Her predator found her again, and the contact information of her new classmates. This time he set up a face book page with her breasts as the profile picture. Again, the school turned on her, again calling her a slut and a whore.

Then things got worse. An old male friend contacted her during her renewed isolation and led her on. Convinced her that he liked her, wanted to be with instead of his present girlfriend, and convinced her to sleep with him. When the girlfriend found out, he stood by and did nothing while she beat in full view of her new school and a posse and students from her old one. All of the students did, except those calling for the beating to take place. That night she tried to kill herself by drinking bleach. She was saved, but a new level of abuse was added once people found out. They started sending pictures of bleach bottles and telling her to kill herself properly next time, even after she had transferred schools yet again.

Amanda Todd killed herself one month after posting this video. Even after her death the attacks didn't stop. Her tormentors posted pictures of her breasts to her memorial page on Facebook and more pictures of bleach bottles with the caption “It's to die for.”

Herald Sun: Online bully victim Amanda Todd still tormented in death

Her story in her own words

http: (slash) (slash) www (dot) youtube (dot) com (slash) watch?v=vOHXGNx-E7E


*Rehtaeh Parsons was 15 when she went with a friend to another's house. There, she was gang raped by 4 boys. One of those boys took a picture of her assault and spread it around the school. As in the case of Amanda Todd, the school turned on her, calling her a slut and whore. Even after she changed schools, she continued to be harassed. Complete strangers would text her asking her to have sex with them. Others would contact just to just tell her what a slut she was. After 17 months of this abuse, she also committed suicide at age 17.

National Post: ‘The justice system failed her’: Nova Scotia teenager commits suicide after being raped, bullied: mother

The Chronicle Herald: Who failed Rehtaeh Parsons?

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

An observation on language: when someone is in the public eye and can be identified, they'll point to specific excuses as to why this woman or that deserved whatever misery happened to her, but this is just political correctness. Everyone can see that the excuses change every time – from dancing to makeup to going to the wrong party – while the true sin, that a female dared to have her sexuality exposed in the wrong way, is constant.

However, take a group of people given complete anonymity – or tweens and teens who wouldn't know “tact” if it hit them over the head - and they don't sugar-coat that fact. They don't dance around with euphemisms or circumlocutions or tossing out excuses for why this woman had it coming where others theoretically wouldn't (even though in reality they always, always do somehow). The truth is that in our culture a slut is a slut is a slut and she has to be punished for it and there are more than enough people in our society who are champing at the bit to put such creatures back in their place with all the zealotry of True Believers.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

There's no 'attack on female sexuality' in my noting that Ginny is a girl who largely defines her existence on dating boys. There's nothing sexist - I'd do the same if Harriet Potter was the Girl Who Lived and Gerald Weasley was his destined romantic partner.

Regarding Ginny, I'm simply saying that she's a one-dimensional character intended to be the 'love interest' of the hero and, as part of that, it's shown that a large part of her life, motivation and character is involved with, revolves around, dating boys. For me the most egregious example of this is her hopping from Michael to Dean. There's no real reason, no attraction, no "because I really like him", it's a case of "I've ditched boy #2, moving right along to chosen boy #3, because that's what I do".

I, personally, don't think dating for the sake of dating is an admirable quality or pursuit. In Ginny's case it's much worse, as you've noted, because of her 'using' the boys in her ultimate quest to snare Harry.

Kindly don't leap from "Brad thinks dating for the sake of dating is less than admirable" to "Brad thinks rape of such girls is any lesser a crime" or "Brad thinks blokes who likewise serial date should be treated differently because they're male" or such. Because I don't. And so your 'calling me out for an inappropriate attack on female sexuality' is unwarranted, based as it is on fabricated assumptions.

Ultimately your comment here, your forbidding me from calling Ginny the Girl Who Dates, is based on fear. You're afraid that making my 'technically factual' assessment of Ginny "feeds into the cultural belief that woman can't legitimately have such desires of their own". I'm sorry, but I'm not willing for my literary analysis to be held hostage by your fear. Instead I personally would prefer to tackle that concern from the other end - by seeing Ginny for what she is, but striving to eliminate any bias or discrimination that makes such an observation of a girl any more damning than that of a boy. Your way is quick and easy censorship that I can't accept and shouldn't be forced to accept. Your heart is in the right place but you've decided (for me) that discussing a disreputable facet of a girl in a book promulgates a real-world dilemma, and suppressing my freedom of speech is the only way to fix things. It's not.

Ginny was written as a girl who almost continuously dated. In book 6 she tells us this was deliberate; both as 'the real her' and also to attract Harry. In fact, while she was dating the other boys she was always hoping to one day move on to Harry, her ultimate goal. That's wrong in several ways, as you've agreed.

I think you're overreaching to marry Ginny Weasley with real world 'slut-shaming' and 'attacks on female sexuality' and 'rape culture'. My observation of her character does not in any way imply my support of same, and should not be stifled because that's the only way you can personally discern of fixing them. Your real-world concerns and opinions, admirable as they are, don't change the fact that Ginny was written as the Girl Who Dates who landed the Boy Who Lived.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

Dating is not the only thing Ginny does. She also casts Bat-Bogey hexes, plays Quidditch, and tosses around her flaming red hair. Calling her the Girl Who Dates omits her other favorite deep meaningful activities.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Ha ha ha!!

Yes, for some absurd reason I feel that dating is a more significant activity that should be in a class above such noble pursuits as creating flying bogies and tossing her flaming red hair. Oh, you forgot casting 'hard, blazing looks'. :-)

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

Ginny Mark Two actually has three defining characteristics. Calling her the Girl Who Dates is punchy but insufficient. She is also the Girl Who Flies and the Girl Who Fights.

1) Dating, flirting, having a boyfriend, tossing around her flaming hair, and giving hard, blazing looks all go together into the “Sexy and Popular with Boys” category.

2) Flying and playing Quidditch belong to the “Strong and Athletic but Not a Tomboy Because (see Category 1: Popular with Boys)” category.

3) Bat-Bogey hexes, insulting Fleur and Hermione, attacking Zach Smith on a broom, throwing food at Percy, and generally copying the twins without their imagination or sense of humor belong to “Bold, Sassy, and Badass, Therefore Worthy To Be Harry’s Warrior Mate” category.

Annoni does, however, have a point. “Slut-shaming” is perhaps a bit strong, but saying Ginny engages in “serial dating”—whether you mean like serial killing or merely serial monogamy—definitely implies disapproval rather than mere description. Why shouldn’t Ginny have a number of different boyfriends? That’s normal. It’s called “playing the field.” As long as she doesn’t tell Michael they’re “going steady” and at the same time go out with Dean, it’s perfectly legitimate. It’s not legitimate if she doesn’t care about them at all and is only using them to catch Harry’s attention, but that’s not the only way to interpret what she’s doing. It could be she’s genuinely trying to get over Harry by seeing other guys, hoping she’ll like one of them better, but it doesn’t work.

Ginny is not a deep character. Like most (all?) secondary characters in the Potterverse, she has a few defining characteristics that get trotted out regularly so we’ll remember who she is. She’s not particularly admirable, but there are many far more contemptible characters in the series available for one’s literary hatred. Personally I find her Insulting-and-Attacking behavior far more questionable than her entirely ordinary “Popular Girl” social life.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Calling her the Girl Who Dates is punchy but insufficient.

Punchy and accurate, even if it doesn't cover *all* of her traits.

Annoni does, however, have a point. “Slut-shaming” is perhaps a bit strong -

Yes. Annoni skipped right past your point of "there's nothing wrong with serial dating, per se" and extended it to societal problems that simply aren't within the scope of my giving Ginny the title of The Girl Who Dates. Or that can be addressed without curbing my rights/freedom to address her so, even if that's the easiest way out for Annoni.

As I said, I don't think there's anything particularly admirable about dating boys just for the sake of dating. But going from there to 'slut shaming' involves an assumption that just isn't supported by my statement.

Ginny was - principally and among other things :-) - the Girl Who Dates, a character portrayed as covetable by boys and hence a desirable object to be won by the Boy Who Lived.

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

"Dating for the sake of dating" is called socializing. "Hanging out with friends for the sake of hanging out with friends" is also called socializing. Neither one is a big deal, or a reason to criticize someone.

I think insulting, attacking, and being "spunky and athletic" are much more defining characteristics for Ginny that dating is. We see her doing those things, first hand, quite often, and we hardly ever actually see her dating. I'd rather define a character by what happens on-stage rather than off. "Show, not tell," remember? What is shown counts for more than what is merely told.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

"Dating for the sake of dating" is called socializing.

I disagree; I see it as more than (mere) 'socialising'.

"Hanging out with friends for the sake of hanging out with friends" is also called socializing.

That's more my definition.

But if you want to broaden (my definition of) 'socialising' to cover 'dating', that's fine. It just doesn't work for me, or my comments about Ginny.

I think insulting, attacking, and being "spunky and athletic" are much more defining characteristics for Ginny that dating is. We see her doing those things, first hand, quite often, and we hardly ever actually see her dating. I'd rather define a character by what happens on-stage rather than off. "Show, not tell," remember? What is shown counts for more than what is merely told.

Sure, and Rowling was a bad writer in that respect, telling rather than showing, if I recall correctly. Much better writing to 'show' rather than 'tell'. It makes the points more vivid, more memorable, more effective, etc.

But the answers - and the character traits - remain the same.

"Is Ginny a thug?". Why, yes. Because we see her being a thug.

"Is Ginny the Girl Who Dates?". Why, yes. Because we're told she (continually) dates, plus we *do* see examples of it - being with Michael, an intense kissing session with Dean, Ginny announcing her next target, etc. We're both told and shown.

But regardless of the mix, notwithstanding (y)our opinion as to how it could have been written *better*, it's still canon that Ginny is the Girl Who Dates.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

I just thought it was a bit amusing, how some people foamed at the mouth for daring to insult (in their eyes) a fictitious character while others cast slurs on the real-life author without a qualm.

Are you implying people are being hypocritical? Who? It's only hypocrisy if it's the same people doing both things. If some commenters are doing so, call them out as you feel is appropriate. Otherwise this is not germane to the discussion we're having.


Now, as an overall qualifier covering all of this serial-dater stuff I want to make it clear that I personally never thought that Harry, Ginny, Ron and Hermione were having sex. I happily read in accordance with the overall intent, customised to Rowling's child readership, that kissing was as far as romantic relations went. Unlike some fans I didn't go looking in the white space between the lines for adult themes in the HP books.

I mention this because I think you, and others, go overboard in your attacks/reactions because you're extrapolating beyond what Rowling wrote. With at least two exaggerations that *I'm* not comfortable with in just your comment here:

* a think calling a girl a 'slut' for merely dating/kissing a series of boys is going too far. 'Slut' is more appropriate for a girl who sleeps with a series of boys; at least that's how I see it;

* miscegenation, according to dictionary dot com, concerns 'marriage or cohabitation between two people of different races'. Which is beyond my own impression of what Ginny and Dean were getting up to.

So I think you have to understand from the start that I'm not looking at this with quite your fervour, because I'm not taking Rowling's books and writing as far beyond what was written as what you are doing. Which is part of your problem with what I *am* saying.

My problem with the Girl Who Dates issue has nothing whatsoever to do with Rowling's writing. It is entirely with you and your continued insistence on using offensive and sexist language and arguments.

If Ginny's “serial” dating is the G-rated version of being a slut, then her dating a black boy while white is the G-rated version of miscegenation. The comparison stands. As I don't believe you would consider it appropriate to call her Ginny Weasley, The Miscegenist (or whatever cutesy nickname you might come up with to refer to a mixed-race relationship, sexual or otherwise) under any circumstances, even if they technically were sleeping together, I would hope you would understand why others are saying that it is equally wrong in principle to condemn her for being 'slut-like,' if not a full-on slut, just because she (under your interpretation of the character) hasn't actually slept with anyone.

Also, refer again to the fact that however you personally might use the word “slut,” we live in a culture that does NOT confine its use to only those women who have willingly and enthusiastically slept with multiple partners (which use in itself is sexist and inappropriate). It is used to shame and denigrate women who dare to dance in public, who discuss having any kind of sex that's not pure vanilla (or even sex that is pure vanilla). It is used to erase and justify the victimization of children who are gang-raped or otherwise violated.

You are not using this word in a vacuum and it is neither your right nor within your power to dictate how the larger community uses the word nor to deny the reality of how others use it. Your usage of it in turn is, by necessity, interpreted in light of that larger cultural context. To deny that interconnectivity is either willful ignorance or delusion.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

No, but it certainly makes it a valid and eligible candidate for consideration as an appropriate or relevant point for an issue under discussion. I'm not sure what you're trying to say there. In a debate, if you can prove something is NOT technically factual, then you can throw it out. If you prove it IS factual then (a) you've helped your opposition and (b) you still have to make an effort to prove that it's not applicable.

No. It is not the duty of the defense to prove applicability of every tiny detail.. A woman factually wearing black lace panties instead of white cotton ones has no relevance to the question of whether or not she was raped. Likewise, the number of boys a woman has dated and how long she waited between ending one relationship and starting another has no relevance to her good character(ization) or lack thereof.


I guess you should tell Ron Weasley that. And Harry. And Hermione, who kept track of Ginny's romantic dalliances. I'm just a reader. They were the characters keeping tabs on Ginny's dating.

You are the human (I am assuming) commenter who continuously denigrates Ginny as The Girl Who Dates. They are fictional characters who do not, in reality, have control over their actions, nor do they in any case reduce a girl to a one dimensional pejorative, which in this matter makes their behavior more moral than yours. Further, it is human to be aware of the relationships of people around us who we care about, such as a friend, a sister, or a crush. One is especially aware of and talks about others' relationships when they affect one's own prospects (Harry), is worried about their affect on the person in question (Ron), or are serving as a friend and sounding-board to the person in question (Hermione). (And before you even bring it up, yes, Ron's comments suggesting the student body might be justified in calling Ginny a Scarlet Woman are also sexist and furthering of rape culture. This is something else to be criticized in his character, not an excuse to behave similarly.)


There's no 'attack on female sexuality' in my noting that Ginny is a girl who largely defines her existence on dating boys. There's nothing sexist - I'd do the same if Harriet Potter was the Girl Who Lived and Gerald Weasley was his destined romantic partner.

...

I, personally, don't think dating for the sake of dating is an admirable quality or pursuit. In Ginny's case it's much worse, as you've noted, because of her 'using' the boys in her ultimate quest to snare Harry.

The problem is that it doesn't matter whether you personally consider a quality admirable. The problem is that you are attacking someone, anyone, for a behavior which harms no one and is no-one's business. Worse, you are encouraging others to attack her as well by insisting that shame and reproach is the minimum acceptable response.

Name one piece of concrete harm that came from Ginny dating multiple boys as she did. Not your offended sensibilities, but concrete, defined harm to the characters in the world in which Ginny exists. Name one piece of concrete harm that came from Ginny moving on to a new relationship after her old one ended in the time frame she did. Name one. And no, you can't point to her using her the boys as tools as your example. That's a separate issue, as it would be wrong of her to use someone like that if she had only ever dated a single boy or had never dated anyone at all.

Besides, as your own writing has made clear it's not the emotional abuse that's important to you: you don't even mention it as an issue unless someone else brings it up first. Your attack is always, consistently, nigh monotonously on the fact that Ginny dated multiple boys and moved on too quickly. It's the only logical meaning of your shorthand “The Girl Who Dates.” If you want to continue to attack her dating habits, provide evidence for why they deserve to be attacked besides “I don't like it.”

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

Kindly don't leap from "Brad thinks dating for the sake of dating is less than admirable" to "Brad thinks rape of such girls is any lesser a crime" or "Brad thinks blokes who likewise serial date should be treated differently because they're male" or such. Because I don't. And so your 'calling me out for an inappropriate attack on female sexuality' is unwarranted, based as it is on fabricated assumptions.

Where did I say that you, personally, support any of those things? What I said, and what I stand by, is that you are supporting and reinforcing the infrastructure that allows those attitudes and the pain that comes from them to continue to exist at all. As such, you are culpable, to whatever degree, for their continued existence. In the grand scheme of things, you may merely be dumping a single glass of water into a dam, but it is a dam where the concrete is audibly creaking and the water is continuously sloshing over the top and drowning women below.

It matters. Every bit matters. The more you affirm the basic premise that women deserve to be punished in any way for not the toeing the line of sexual purity, even when they harm no one by failing to do so, the more you enable and reassure the people who believe that punishment should be worse than what you, personally, might agree with. You are, after all, on the same page that she deserves to have something bad happen to her. You are further agreed that you have the right, nay, the obligation even to afflict that punishment yourself. Why else would you demand the right to continue slut-shaming her without being called to account?

You continue to refer to her dating as something disgraceful, something to be scorned, something that makes her a “not-very-nice girl” who “shouldn't be promoted as the love interest of the 'hero'.” Her dating is presented as something that makes her lesser. Less worthy of respect, less deserving of getting what she wants out of life, and you continue to try and make the rest of our community (your public) join you in condemning her for it.

She's not a slut, but she's the child-rated Rowling equivalent.

“But Ginny *is* somewhat close to the G-rated equivalent [of a slut].”

Those are your own words, Brad. You made the comparison and your opinion of it explicit. You further made this statement defending the choices of people who did call Ginny an out-and-out slut when another poster expressed discomfort with that practice. You cannot then turn around say that you're not slut-shaming when you, yourself, have said that you believe Ginny's behavior is as slut-like as you can get in a children's book. If you didn't consider being a slut, e.g. having too many partners within whatever period of time (which is the one point you harp on in every post!), to be something shameful that required your censure, it wouldn't even register as something to comment on. It would be as unremarkable – and as undeserving of shame - as noting a male character played sports.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

Ultimately your comment here, your forbidding me from calling Ginny the Girl Who Dates, is based on fear. You're afraid that making my 'technically factual' assessment of Ginny "feeds into the cultural belief that woman can't legitimately have such desires of their own".

It's not fear, it's facts. We live in a world where an 11-year-old girl being in the company of teenage boys is used to excuse/justify her gang-rape by nearly 30 men some of whom were nearly three times her age. It is a world where a woman dancing in public is considered permission to strip her bare for the entire world to gawk at and masturbate to in perpetuity.

By holding up female sexuality in any form as something to be mocked, shamed, and criticized, you legitimize the philosophy that those more extreme perspectives rely on to exist and perpetuate themselves. What's more, you increase the pain of the victims by affirming to them that their tormentors are correct: that they have somehow debased themselves in trying to connect with others, that they deserve to be punished and looked at with scorn despite their actions harming no one. That you think maybe their punishment shouldn't be as severe isn't a comfort at all, only the difference between adding a piece of straw to the back of a straining camel vs. adding a twig or a log. When that camel's back breaks, do you truly believe you'll have no culpability at all?

(And please don't try to argue that words such as slurs and aspersions aren't harmful: the brain processes emotional pain in exactly the same area it processes physical pain. Unless you want to argue that, for example, the pain of a broken leg is equally inconsequential, just don't go there.

http: (slash) (slash) www (dot) sciencemag (dot) org (slash) content/302/5643/290)


Instead I personally would prefer to tackle that concern from the other end - by seeing Ginny for what she is, but striving to eliminate any bias or discrimination that makes such an observation of a girl any more damning than that of a boy.

Unfortunately, in the real world such observations are not neutral. We see this time and time again whenever a woman is accused of impropriety, regardless of whether the “offense” is actual or imagined or even whether people agree it should be an offense in the first place.

As I explained at the beginning of this series of posts, public shaming is at it's core a form of mob justice. And as we have seen over and over and over again, when the person held up for shame is a sexualized female, the response generated by that mob is beyond vile.

We see this every time a woman is found guilty in the public court of having her sexuality exposed while existing as female. A virtual lynch mob forms, bombarding her with messages calling her a slut and a whore, blaming her for her own violation, telling her she deserved her pain, that she should kill herself, that they'll kill her or rape her or both. Some will even follow up on those threats. It doesn't matter if she technically had sex or not. It doesn't matter if she was a child who could not, under any interpretation of the law, give consent even if she was willing. There is a deep seated strain of misogyny in our culture that bubbles up to the surface whenever such a case makes its way into the public eye.

The only way to circumvent such mob justice is to codify the acceptable consequences into law and enforce that law; to define clearly what the offense is and what penalty society deems adequate to atone for it, following the payment of which the offender has erased their debt and can move on without further retribution.

[annoni-no.livejournal.com]

So, for the sake of this argument, let's grant that. Let's assume the (in your opinion) unconscionable crime of “serial dating” is codified by law and is furthermore equally enforced between the sexes. What does this law look like to you?

1) a) For how many days n must a person wait after ending a relationship before they can legally start another?

b) Is there a sliding scale such that a couple that dated for 1 year must wait for a minimum of n days but a couple dating for 1 year, 1 month must wait n + 1 days? What is this scale?

2) Who has standing to file suit? Is it only the “jilted” ex or can any bystander drag the malfeasor to court to halt the incipient moral decay of society?

3) What standards of evidence are required to be found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt? How deeply into the suspect's background are authorities allowed to dig before they are considered to be overstepping the suspect's right to privacy? Is the suspect considered to have a right to privacy at all?

4) What is the penalty if found guilty? If jail, for how long? A week? A month? If a fine, how much? $100? $250? $1,000? To whom would such a fine be paid, the ex or the state?

Give us some numbers to work with, Brad. How severely do you think someone (of either sex, you claim) should be punished so that their debt to society is squared and they can move on with their lives unimpeded?

If you have no figures to offer, if you continue to insist that shaming is the proper sentence, the only conclusion to be drawn is that the possibility someone (nearly always a woman or girl) will be given a life sentence, however long or short that may be, of constant abuse, degradation, threats, and impairment in her ability to obtain work and act in the public sphere is perfectly acceptable to you.

That is the reality of how shaming works in our world. If you don't want to be understood to endorse that, tell us what you think the appropriate punishment is.


Your way is quick and easy censorship that I can't accept and shouldn't be forced to accept. Your heart is in the right place but you've decided (for me) that discussing a disreputable facet of a girl in a book promulgates a real-world dilemma, and suppressing my freedom of speech is the only way to fix things. It's not.

The 1st Amendment only guards against government curtailment of speech. We, your fellow private citizens, have no obligation whatsoever to stand by and allow you to spout bigotry/sexism/whatever without comment by virtue of the fact that you shot off your mouth first. Our free speech rights equally grant us the opportunity to confront speech we find unacceptable. Moreover, as private citizens we are not obligated to give you a platform to speak from in the first place. The owners of Livejournal, the moderators of this community, and the original poster would be well within their rights to ban anyone commenting on these threads, and it would not be an abridgment of our free speech.



(P.S. This: dating = “a disreputable facet of a girl” is what we all find sexist, Brad. Thank you for summarizing your stance so succinctly and clearly, as if we hadn't already lost all doubts.)

[jana-ch.livejournal.com]

This: dating = “a disreputable facet of a girl” is what we all find sexist.

Thank you, Annoni. THAT summarizes the issue. I have no problem with bashing Ginny Weasley, but if she's going to be bashed it should be for recklessly tossing around hexes like a latter-day Marauder, not for enjoying masculine company. The former activity is worthy of criticism; the latter is not.

I also have no problem criticizing her as a superficial literary creation whose sole purpose is to be Harry's love interest, but that criticism would be as valid of Ginny Mark One, who was quiet and shy, as it is of Ginny Mark Two, serial dater.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Thanks for your comments, annoni_no. I found most of it interesting reading, even if most of it is also irrelevant, exaggerated or wrong. :-)

I found your discourse on mob justice particularly significant, given as how I'm currently arguing elsewhere that the modern warfare waged by 'social justice warriors' on citizens for non-crimes is an indication of mob justice supplanting the rule of law. We agree on this, it seems.

What intrigued me most was your diving straight into THE FIRST AMENDMENT as soon as I mentioned 'free speech'. As a non-American I've always been a bit bemused by the reverence Americans accord their centuries-old constitution. Admirable in most respects, of course, but it seems to hold you up in others, like gun control. Speaking as someone who knows little about the USA subject (I gather the gun lobby is a big factor as well as obeisance to the hallowed 'right to bear arms').

Replace my 'free speech' phrasing with 'right to say what I think' or anything else that doesn't trigger your mental redirect straight to the American constitution and you should get the broader gist of what I was saying; that your finding my comments personally incorrect or offensive shouldn't restrict my ability to write them in this community.

(Particularly when you're wrong. :-))

I've love to continue this debate but your discourse on 'free speech' threw up a red flag for me:

The owners of Livejournal, the moderators of this community, and the original poster would be well within their rights to ban anyone commenting on these threads, and it would not be an abridgment of our free speech.

OP mary_j_59 was wrong when she stated that deathtocapslock is not a moderated community. My understanding is that it is 'largely unmoderated' but the owner of the community does occasionally act ... and it might be possible to be banned if one or more members got sufficiently upset about being 'offended' and decided that their feelings were more important than Brad's right to 'free speech'.

(The ease with which you pass the moral burden of 'free speech' onto your constitution and thus seemingly happily accept the potential loss of same on this community quite alarms me. That's frightening and anathema to everything I believe.)

So I'm not going to continue this discussion; there's too much chance that someone could agitate for my removal because of 'offence'. Maybe because they truly believe that they shouldn't read anything they don't like here. Or because Ginny needs to be defended. Or because only the American First Amendment matters, and it doesn't rule here. Or in a blessed state of self-righteousness, fuelled by feminist doctrine 101 and the hazy impression of my comments being 'wrong' in a forced and artificial comparison driven by a need to compel everyone to conform to their real-world beliefs in a forum dedicated to fictional childrens books.

I want to launch my own spoof series here one day so I don't want to tempt fate. I'm going to keep calling Ginny 'The Girl Who Dates' ... because that's how she was written. But I'm not going to fan flames by rebutting all of your spurious points and nebulous links to real world feminism. And it's not like I'm using the term often; the first and only time was a year ago, I think. I referenced that thread here as an example of something quite disconnected from Ginny's actual status as The Girl Who Dates. I'm not going to let your own personal mental model of the world completely dominate what I should be allowed to write (when I firmly believe you're completely wrong in how it connects in the first place) but I doubt the need to reference the title of The Girl Who Dates will come up too often.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

(continued)

But I will tie things up with your most important accusation, that you actually share with someone else (jana_ch):

This: dating = “a disreputable facet of a girl” is what we all find sexist, Brad. Thank you for summarizing your stance so succinctly and clearly, as if we hadn't already lost all doubts.

Let me clear things up for you. I'll rephrase: "Your heart is in the right place but you've decided (for me) that discussing a disreputable facet of a person in a book promulgates a real-world dilemma, and suppressing my freedom of speech is the only way to fix things. It's not."

Just a one-time fix for you so you can drop this claim that I'm a 'sexist'. Wow. That was *easy*!

I'll go back to calling Ginny a 'girl' in the future (because she is). As I've said before, I'd be calling Ginny 'The Boy Who Dates' if she was a boy. There's nothing sexist in what I've said (or believe). One of your greatest strawmen has been to wave your arms and deduce "Brad is criticising Ginny and she's a girl SO AHA! HE MUST BE A SEXIST!". No. Or using the fact that Ginny is a girl to connect to problems for women in the real world when those issues are quite detached from my observations of Ginny-the-person.

[terri-testing.livejournal.com]

Madderbrad, try this: There's a great Hermione-centric fic out there on Archive of our Own, "In Loco Parentis" by Dolores Crane. If you go to AO3 and search for "In Loco Parentis" and Hermione it'll come right up. It's a sixth-year AU in which, among other things, Hermione is sent to Azkaban for having an unauthorized abortion.

And even after she's released and is back at Hogwarts, she has to deal with being slut-shamed. Coming mostly from the other girls. Graffitti in the girls' loo- Hermione is a slag, Hermione is a baby-killer. Whispers at night in her dormitory. Comments, jeers, taunts.

The fiction makes it very clear how the slut-shaming Hermione endures from her peers after her return is a part of the same continuum of attitudes about women's sexuality as that decision by three old men to sentence her to Azkaban.

Since you like Hermione, when you read about her being punished and shamed for having dared to have sexual longings and to have acted on them, and how she's harmed by this shaming, maybe it'll sink in that denigrating a female (or a female character) specifically for acting on her desires for sex or for romance, is an expression of the same culture that threw Hermione in Azkaban. Because they thought it was THEIR business what SHE did with her body. (Or didn't do--when you, Madderbrad exculpate Ginny on the grounds that, well, in your opinion she didntt actually sleep with her unseemly parade of boyfriends, you are reiterating and reinforcing the view that for a girl to have sex with a boy she's dating is bad. Or at least bad if they are casual partners, if he's not her One True Love whom she plans to marry and stay with forever. Otherwise it wouldn't strike you that "not sleeping with them" would liessen the "offense" of her dating multiple partners.)

Also, everybody everywhere should read the story because it's fantastic, and has some wickedly, wickedly funny scenes and lines.

[madderbrad.livejournal.com]

Terri, I'm not sure that story would be of any help in clarifying my discussion with annoni_no. She's detailed the 'rape culture' and sexist mindsets and such that exist in the real world; *I accept this*. So I don't need to read a fictionalised account of the same problems.

They simply don't relate to my beliefs about Ginny Weasley and how she is the Girl Who Dates in the Harry Potter novels.

I understand how annoni_no can leap to the assumption that I'm progressing from those mindsets, or driven by same. But it's just that - her assumption. With one or more dominoes inserted by annoni_no necessary in order to complete the chain from "Brad calls Ginny 'The Girl Who Dates'" to "Brad's calling Ginny 'The Girl Who Dates' perpetuates rape culture" or "Brad is a sexist". "Kinda looks the same" isn't good enough when you're throwing around insulting accusations.

That story doesn't sound like my cup of tea - does Hermione marry Harry in the end? That might make it worthwhile. :-)

Also, everybody everywhere should read the story because it's fantastic, and has some wickedly, wickedly funny scenes and lines.

Well, maybe I'll read it after all. Thanks!