I think that Mrs. Weasley is a great character. I wouldn’t chide her character for staying home. She has had seven kids to take care of, on a limited income. I don’t know how the wizarding world is with child care, but that would have been super expensive in the muggle world. And even if the Weasleys were more affluent, it’s her right to stay home if she wants to. I thought McGonagall was an inspiring and great character. Neville’s mom was a great and accomplished Auror. Ginny is amazingly strong. Hermione eventually goes high up in the Ministry, and she has children (I read about the Ministry bit in an interview with J.K. Rowling). I think that Rowling presents many social issues in the wizarding world in a complex, not-easy-to-solve manner, which rings true with reality.

I haven’t paid attention as much to how pro-fat or anti-fat the book is. I remember thinking that it was cool that there were good and bad fat and skinny characters, but I don’t remember what that was about. Neville, maybe? I’ll have to think about it.

And I had no problem with Tonks going into confinement when she found out she was pregnant, because her job at that point had a stunningly high mortality rate. Obviously she was right back out there once she wasn’t pregnant, given her death scene.

And I think everything else I would have said has been covered.

I’m glad you touched on the Molly Weasley thing, though. For all that I’m glad she kicked Bellatrix Lestrange’s ass, I hated her line there. It was totally Sigourney Weaver from the end of Aliens. I was half expecting Molly to magic herself up a power loader or something to beat Bellatrix up with.

Just… I almost would have rather they had just left her in the kitchen, than to have her only moment of badassery be such a cliche’d Protective Mother Bear moment. blegh!

Also, I hated that she killed Tonks. I loved her, for all that I didn’t quite get the Tonks/Lupin thing either. Just… way to kill off an asskicking female character who probably would have refused to give up her job (and hey, why should she have, aside from a few days a month, Lupin would have made an ideal at-home dad).

Question: Was cooking and cleaning the only thing Molly did for the Order? I had just assumed that she did other things that we just didn’t hear much about. She did show up for the battle at Hogwarts, but then again didn’t other parents? Is there any mention in the books, even just in passing, of her doing anything else?

Don’t get me started on the Uncle Vernon ice-cream eating in the OotP movie! It was such an unnecessary, cheap fat joke! That wasn’t Rowling’s fault, but overall I think she could have had some fat main characters that didn’t somewhat fit a stereotype.

*As much as I love Tonks, I must agree with mo pie: in my ideal world, Remus and Sirius would have gotten together in, like, Book 3.

I enjoy the Potter books and it’s been good to see how her writing has become more subtle as the cast expands, but the early books especially have a lot of moments of casual misogyny and simplistic stereotypes. The movies only make them worse, of course!

Overall, I think Rowling definitely portrays women as equal to men. When Ron or Harry try to act sexist in any way, Hermione puts the smackdown on them. In the real world, some women elect to stay home and raise families, some work, some have kids, some don’t. Of the kids in the books: Neville raised by his ‘formidable’ grandmother; Hermione’s parents are both dentists; Dean has a single mom; Seamus’ mom is definitely a dominant personality…

Rowling has also said that, in terms of her own kids, she doesn’t want them to see either her or her husband slacking off and not working, even though they are well off.