TO VERILYB1TCH1E ABOUT GIRL WIZARDS AND HARADRIM, ETC

My two Knuts about this video essay (I put these comments about co-ed/multiracial wizarding schools and about the Haradrim in the comments section on YouTube):

1) the wizarding school in Earthsea, unlike Hogwarts, is NOT co-ed or multiracial. You go on harping about BOY wizards but give very short shrift to the fact that there are NO female students at the school in Earthsea, or that ALL the students are NOT only boys, but ALL of them dark-skinned. In making Hogwarts co-ed and multiracial, at least, Rowling was something revolutionary - or were there co-ed and/or multiracial wizarding schools before Hogwarts and Rowling? (Eskarina is the ONLY female student at UU, like Threnody at Winstermill: I didn't know that the UU had female founders like Hogwarts - and patriarchy erased that!).

2) on race in Middle-Earth: there are races in Middle-Earth like humans, dwarves, elves, halflings/hobbits, "races" in fantasy sense. You mention orcs, but NOT Haradrim: BLACK (literally pitch black-skinned) Orcs from the SOUTH (like Africa is south of Europe), who ride f-ing AFRICAN ELEPHANTS. You may have seen them in Return of the King. A lot has been said about Rings of Power having black elves and dwarves... but the Haradrim are more or less neglected, because their existence was a hot potato in Tolkieniana!

UPDATE on Haradrim: it seems (the wikis say) that these are HUMANS (not orcs), but at least they are very orclike, monstrous humans, who descend from black Numenoreans, MIND, BLOWN.

Writing in the 2000s, Alison Lurie says Hogwarts is co-ed and multiracial "in keeping with the times (the 90s/2000s)":

Hogwarts resembles a classic English boarding school—one that, in keeping with the times, is co-ed and multiracial. There are four houses, which compete intensely in the school sport of Quidditch, a sort of combination cricket, basketball, European football, and hockey played on flying broomsticks, in which Harry turns out to excel. The teachers wear black gowns and dine at a head table, and there are prefects and a Head Boy and a Head Girl.

Just as in many schools, however, the student population is roughly divided into jocks, brains, nice guys, and dangerous Goths. Harry, Ron, and Hermione are in the jock house, Gryffindor, where, according to tradition, “dwell the brave at heart.” Ravenclaw House emphasizes “wit and learning,” while the kids in Hufflepuff are described as “just and loyal . . . And unafraid of toil.” The bad characters live in Slytherin House, where they “use any means / to achieve their ends.”

(In Words and Worlds, Lurie contrasts Hogwarts with previous literary boarding schools --it is unlike most classic boarding-school locations [but she omits that it was "in keeping with the times"], and expands on the ethnic and social-class origins of the students):

Unlike most classic boarding-school locations, Hogwarts is co-ed, multicultural, and multi-class: its students come from both rich and poor (and middle-class) families and include Chinese, South Asian, black, and Jewish kids. Some have wizarding parents, others do not (and others have one parent from each background, like Harry)

Here Lurie uses the same descriptors for the houses as "cliques" (Ravenclaws are "brains," Slytherins are "dangerous Goths," etc.) but also echoes the fan theory that:

In fact, Hermione seems a natural Ravenclaw and Ron a natural Hufflepuff (and Harry a natural Slytherin): authorial convenience, rather than the Sorting Hat, appears to have placed them all together (as Gryffindors).

It is no surprise than there are thousands of fics where the Golden Trio have been sorted into these houses: no longer sharing a common room, eating at different tables, but meeting at class and at recess...

I (Sandra Dermark, writing these comments on Hogwarts and quoting Alison Lurie) am fiercely proud of being not only a Ravenclaw, one of Lurie's "brains," but also F-ing Prefect for Ravenclaw (at least in the games I play). I felt I had to give my two Knuts on the subjects of gender and race in fantasy worlds that Verilyb1tch1e skirts in her video essay. Justice for the Haradrim! And there must have been a co-ed and multiracial wizarding school before Hogwarts, or was Rowling the first one?

THE POWER OF PLACE - CHAPTER 7

Chapter 7: Same Place, Divergent Destines

      Males and females have been separated from the beginning of time. Each culture, country, religion, has their own opinion on the whole subject, but male dominance has almost always been a factor. Harm De Blij states how males make the world more flat as well; you don't see a whole lot of female Asians or Africans flying on a plane to Los Angeles to get a job (2009, p.157).  Gender effects education, deaths, children, and economy in the world in serveral different ways.
        
The Longevity Gap
       Women tend to live a decade longer than men because women tend not to pick up on the unhealthy habits (alcoholism, addictions, drug abuse, suicide, etc...) of men (De Blij, 2009, p.161). The book shows a map of how third world countries tend to have a smaller longevity gap than the core countries.

Living longer comes with its downs because many of the women that do live longer than their soulmate usually suffer from poverty and loneliness.

Quality of Life
    Every culture in the world has its own opinion about women and how they should be treated , and for the most part it is not good. Many women are to stay home and work hard in the house, and if they are lucky they might be able to go to school for a few years. Domestic Violence is also and issue; in an UN study 60% of all divorce cases state that the wife had some sort of physical violence. In India suicide rate are higher for women and they often will be killed by their husband because their family cannot pay the correct dowry (De Blij, 2009, p.167). Female mutilation is another terrible thing that countries in Southwest and Southeast Asia and Africa do to women. They do a painful surgery on children under the age of 11 without any anesthesia.  An estimation is that 70 to 90% of all women in Somalia have had the surgery (De Blij, 2009,p.169). It is a gruesome procedure and is not fair to women in any way. Women in all of the world have also fought for the right to work. Even in America females have not received the right wages and they face many barriers in this globalizing world (De Blij, 2009, p. 171).

Rulers and Ruled
    Even when women have the opportunity to become leaders, men still rule the majority of countries. Only 2 of 40 states in Europe are led by women and no woman has ever held the lead position in North America, East Asia, or Australia. Harm De Blij shows a map of women in parliament and how many of the countries in the core do not have an ample amount of women on the seats: US has 16 out of 100 and 71 out for 435, and only 9 % in India. Surprisingly, the periphery countries have many more female leaders. "...the small and poor have something to teach the large and powerful." (De Blij, 2009, p.176) maybe something the core wants to take a look at.

Barriers Abolished
     Today women have many more opportunities then they did even just a century ago. Countries all over the world are recognizing that women are just as capable of doing things just as well as men, if not better. Government is now recognizing that the more gender-diverse states can sometimes be better, and India even has seats that are "women-only" in their parliament (De Blij, 2009, p.180). Gender is still a major way to determine the power of any place in the world.

Chapter 7: Same Places Divergent Destinies

                      If you think about, the gender of a child is determined by only one chromosome, so why has the male dominated over the female population for hundreds of years? No one will ever know why it was determined to be like that from the beginning of time, but it was, and every religion and country will have their own opinion on this matter. Because of thinking that males are “better” than females, many women have been pushed aside over the past years and some are still being treated unfairly today. In the past years, the “right” thing for them to do was to stay home, take care of the children, and make dinner. Also many were physically violated and abused which is a cruel act considering we are all the same species of human beings, but during the past years the women have fought for themselves to be respected like any other man. All their hard work and fighting has paid off and has been successful because today many women have become leaders and gotten involved in the government. The males and females are slowly beginning to even out which allows women to be recognized for all their same good qualities that the males have. Also another topic on genders is longevity; which gender lives longer? Usually in core countries the females live longer because more males do drugs, alcohol, and etc, and the overall longevity of the population is longer in the core countries than in the periphery countries.