gender balance in Harry Potter

[mindstalk]

I was musing idly on why fanfic is in largely part M/M, and on how part of that is the source material mostly having developed male characters interacting, e.g. Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek, or LotR. And then Harry Potter:

* The holy trio is Harry, Ron, Hermione

* The Weasleys are Molly and Ginny vs. Arthur and five additional sons.

* The teachers who spring to mind are Dumbedore, Hagrid, Snape vs. McGonnagall.

* The DADA teachers are mostly male: Quirrel, Lupin, Lockhart, Moody vs. Umbridge. (We already counted Snape).

* Even the Dursleys are 2 male, 1 female.

* I can easily think of James's male school friends who are concerned about Harry, Lupin and Sirius, but who were Lily's friends?

I'm not going to try counting the students.

And this is a female-authored series in a high magic setting where there's no particular reason for male dominance. Harry being a boy could skew his peer experience male, but wouldn't explain the Weasley birth ratio or a lack of mom-friends.

Comments

[mindstalk]

Whereas for me, partially because I'm a straight man, my fic ideas and reading are mostly gen or femslash, with some het reading (probably gen with het rather than pure het) and a teeny bit of het idea/writing. My writing ideas are driven entirely by "I want to write this", not by audience, not that I've published any fic yet to get an audience. (I have read some slash, mostly Silmarillion or recently Good Omens, but it's certainly not what I seek out. Preferably non-explicit slash, whereas fem could be sweet or smut.)

If I did care about audience, well, my biggest writing fandoms are Nanoha ("404 Men Not Found") and Silmarillion-ish stuff which fandom is like half gen anyway, at least on AO3, so such concern wouldn't change anything. :)

And the thing I typed up most recently was based on a yuri manga...

[minoanmiss]

That's a really good point, about the 'customers' for our writing. I admit I write for other people than just myself -- that's why I'm in fandom rather than writing original fiction. Sometimes I wonder if I should think less about what the market will bear and more about what I personally want. You have inspired me to contemplate that once again. :)

Ah, the Silmarillion. Elves Behaving Badly.