JKR and fandom’s sexism in portrayal of female characters’ intellect
I see a lot of the same regurgitated takes about JKR's sexism in the books while people ignore one of the most basic ones, which I think is much more egregious than like, JKR disliking "girly" things.
This is the list of male characters who are brilliant inventors:
Dumbledore, Voldemort, Grindelwald, Snape, Sirius, James, Remus, Fred and George Weasley, even Arthur Weasley enchanting Ford Anglia; for offhand mentions, there’s Nicolas Flamel and the Philosopher’s Stone, Bowman Wright inventor of the Golden Snitch, Damocles Belby inventor of the Wolfsbane potion, Urquhart Rackharrow inventor of the Entrail Expelling Curse; potentially the three Peverell brothers inventing the Hallows though I tend to think Death created them.
For women there’s… Hermione. That’s literally it. That is 14+ men and 1 singular woman.
(Iirc Grindelwald is the only one we don't know a specific invention or innovation but he's acknowledged as a Dark Lord on par with Dumbledore and Voldemort so that's basically the same)
We have women who are acknowledged as skilled in their specific fields and/or skilled in combat, like Bellatrix of course, McGonagall, Bathilda Bagshot, Amelia Bones. But they aren't painted as innovators, as inventors, as making magical discoveries, as doing things never done before, as experimenting and pushing the boundaries of magic, as creative geniuses (a term fandom loves to debate about regarding who counts).
It's very heavily implied that Snape's modifications and inventions are a collaborative effort with Lily, but that's still not explicitly confirmed. Bellatrix probably comes closest as implied to be on level with Dumbledore and Voldemort - described as having prodigous skill like Dumbledore, parallels Voldemort in combat, etc (To her credit, JKR in interviews has implied that she sees Bellatrix as Voldemort's equal, just like Grindelwald is Dumbledore's, which is frankly better than most of this fandom, lol.) But in the text we still don't know her skills other than combat. There's Pandora Lovegood having died experimenting with magic, but there's no specific innovations named. Bathilda Bagshot - who taught Dumbledore and probably Grindelwald too - only exists to highlight how brilliant the two men are.
I rarely even see anyone acknowledge this as an issue amongst the numerous discussions of JKR’s misogyny, much less challenge it.
Most of the time, fandom just accepts the utterly misogynistic viewpoint that Dumbledore and Voldemort are each other's only intellectual equals, usually along with Grindelwald and Snape.
If fandom is going to complain about JKR's misogyny, people should be willing to do the literal bare minimum and challenge the most basic misogynistic notion that women don't have the same intellectual capacity as men.
For example (and all of this is perfectly valid to consider canon in a Watsonian analysis): Bathilda Bagshot made as many magical discoveries as Dumbledore. Hermione is as much of a genius and invented a lot more things off screen - who would've done even more if her school years weren't taken up with dealing with Voldemort. Bellatrix is Voldemort's equal and Voldemort's successes during the war were half because of her, and she invented a lot of the Dark artifacts in Grimmauld Place. And, as I am constantly on my soapbox about, Lily Evans didn't deflect the Killing Curse and vanquish Voldemort by accident, but had a plan and did dark magic to accomplish this, because she was just as brilliant as Voldemort.
“They say, still, that no Wizarding duel ever matched that between Dumbledore and Grindelwald in 1945. Those who witnessed it have written of the terror and the awe they felt as they watched these two extraordinary wizards do battle. Dumbledore’s triumph, and its consequences for the Wizarding world, are considered a turning point in magical history to match the introduction of the International Statute of Secrecy or the downfall of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. (DH)
Notice how Lily's accomplishment is stated as equal to Dumbledore and Grindelwald's - and yet her name is never mentioned, she's erased from the history books, because of course a Muggleborn woman would be.
When you do try to challenge this misogyny, fandom will counter it with all sorts of takes that are painted as revolutionary but in fact just play into JKR’s shitty sexism. Like how Hermione Isn't That Smart Actually, with 90% of takes defending Ron and Harry’s intelligence completely diminishing Hermione's, and fandom even debates whether Hermione actually invented her few canon inventions (the DA coins, the SNEAK curse, the Four Point Spell), unwilling to give her even that much credit (more on Hermione's intellect here and here). Or like how pointing out that Lily doing dark magic/intentional magic to defeat Voldemort is the superior and Watsonian explanation is Going Against Canon Themes Actually (what canon themes? the one where women are intellectually inferior to men?). Fandom is also perfectly willing to subvert major narrative themes when it comes to male characters - see: the amount of fans who discard JKR's claim that Voldemort is incapable of love (and, as I explain here, if you're claiming that Voldemort is capable of love, then the automatic interpretation that has to be true is that he then wasn't defeated solely by Mother's Love).
It's also just important in terms of plot relevancy and worldbuilding - magical knowledge is evidently a form of capital and power and property, people hoard their "magical secrets" like any other resource, and a pretty large amount of magical society experiments with magic (what we see in the Room of Hidden Things, the Department of Mysteries, Ministry departments such as "Experimental Charms", etc.), it almost seems to be an expectation in portions of the magical world. Brilliant characters and “geniuses” are front and center of the narrative, characters’ intellect is in fact a very major theme in the series, with Harry being academically average (or, above average, but still not a creative genius) serving as a contrast to other players in the war. So women being so overtly absent in this narrative theme is a huge gaping hole in it that needs to be filled.
TL;DR do better. And if accepting that characters like Hermione, Lily, Bellatrix, Bathilda, etc could've been intellectually equal to the likes of Voldemort and Dumbledore and Grindelwald makes you uncomfortable, consider why that is (spoiler: the answer is misogyny).
