Reverberations: Contemporary Curriculum and Pedagogy: Females and Harry Potter : Not All That Empowering (Hardcover)

ID: eH8QavIXK1

Manufacturer: Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group Inc

This book explores the sexism inherent in the Harry Potter series books in which a hero and his male friends are the focus and center of activity and the female characters are passive enablers--at best. Using critical discourse analysis and focusing on five themes (rule following/breaking intelligence validating/enabling mothering and resistance) the author explores the construction of traditional gender roles throughout the books. She concludes with a discussion of the implications for development of school curricula that enable students to critically deconstruct these texts. Females and Harry Potter is a deconstruction of the representations of women s agency in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer s Stone. Using critical discourse analysis and focusing on five themes (rule following and breaking intelligence validating and enabling mothering and resistance) Mayes-Elma explores the construction of traditional gender roles in the book. Additionally the author locates the foundations of feminist epistemology--binary oppositions gender boundaries and woman as other --that is deeply embedded within the book s themes. Traditional gender constructions of both men and women are found throughout the Sorcerer s Stone. Ultimately the book explores the sexism inherent in the Harry Potter series: a hero and his male friends are the focus and center of activity and the female characters are enablers--at best. Passive and invisible female characters exist only as bodies bound by traditional gender conventions; they resist evil but never gender stereotypes. Mayes-Elma concludes with a discussion of the implications for development of school curricula that enable students to critically deconstruct these texts.