Feminist Literary Character: Hermione Granger?

           Recently I was reading an article about feminist literary characters (or the lack thereof) and Hermione Granger was mentioned in passing as a sidekick, not a feminist character. This caught my eye; I thought, of course Hermione’s a feminist character! But the more I think about it, the more I’m unsure of how to categorize her. So, I thought I would write about it to try and work it out. (I’d like to point out in advance that I understand that Harry Potter is the main character of all these books; I’m just interested in seeing the gendered dynamics at play between the leading (male) Harry and the supporting (female) Hermione).

            First, her obviously feminist characteristics. She is the smartest student in her class, constantly reading, answering questions in class, and proofreading (or finishing) the homework of Harry and Ron. She is an activist, forming the Society for the Promotion of Elfish Welfare (S.P.E.W.) when she discovers the form of slavery that is house elf-ery. While she goes through normal adolescent uncertainty and insecurity about her appearance, she decides that time spent on adjusting her appearance is not worth it (she discovers this in Goblet of Fire after straightening her hair for the Yule Ball). She is stubborn in her convictions and refuses to be pushed around.

            But what about her less-than-feminist characteristics? She is a perfectionist, striving to be the best in everything she tries; this would be, to me, a feminist characteristic, except that she seems totally incapable of handling the smallest of failures (such as a less than perfect score on any exam). While this shows that she is ambitious and has high expectations for herself, her reactions to failure show an instability and fragility that could do damage to her later in life. She also seems perfectly content to be the-woman-behind-the-man in Harry Potter’s life. We as readers know that she is a necessity to Harry’s success in almost all of his adventures, but she seems to be okay with always receiving less, little, or no praise or fame. Ron goes through phases of extreme jealousy, struggling with his role as ‘best friend of Harry Potter,’ while Hermione never has a problem with this (on the one hand, this could be a very selfless, admirable characteristic; on the other, a passive, stereotypical female characteristic).

            The virgin/whore dichotomy is often discussed in feminism: the idea that women get cast in one of the two roles. I think this is interesting to explore in the case of Hermione. She is most certainly a virgin (as I believe all the characters are), but she gets her first kiss before Ron. However, in the sixth book, when Ron finds out about her kissing Viktor Krum, he goes after Lavender Brown. This feels very much like a guy going for the girl who will ‘put out’ (which, in the world of Harry Potter, means a lot of public making-out and other PDA). So even though Hermione has been kissed, she still seems to be cast in the role of virginal girl embarrassed by exposure to teen sexuality, with Lavender as the unashamed sexualized whore (we don’t even see Ron ask Lavender out on a date; their first appearance as a couple is sharing a chair while making out in the Gryffindor common room).

            Overall, I think Hermione Granger is a well-rounded and complex character, and one I love very much. Her ambition, intelligence and steadfast conviction are admirable characteristics that any young girl could, and should, admire. However, I think too often J.K. Rowling falls into female/feminine stereotypes in order to make life at Hogwarts a little bit simpler or easily identified.