HP Prognostications #93: Female Role Models in Harry Potter

No time for a detailed post today, so I'll just post a quick rec for the HP Prognostications podcast. They generally have a nice mix of humor and analysis, and the last episode (#93) was particularly interesting. They were discussing an essay by Elizabeth Heilman, "Blue Wizards and Pink Witches: Representations of Gender Identity and Power," which argues that there are no good female role models in Harry Potter. As the hosts say, whether you agree with her or not, it makes for a very interesting discussion. One interesting thing that was pointed out on the podcast was that while there is a very traditional portrayal of women as wives and mothers--we see married women like Molly, or single women with no children (like McGonagall), but no single mothers, which is perhaps a little odd, since JKR was a single mother herself.

The episode was posted about a week ago, but I only just got around to listening to it now. You can download it from iTunes, or directly from the HP Progs website.