Females and Harry Potter: Not All That Empowering

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.