Book 2, Ep. 1 | Feminist Theory

Greetings Witches! We're so excited to be moving on to Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets with you! Break out your feminist reading glasses, because we're approaching this text with the tried and true (but also ever evolving) principles of feminist theory. We're returning to the origins of Witch Please and pulling from feminism's foundational texts to guide us through this second Harry Potter installment (which, by the way, contains several issues—including: parental neglect and abuse, starvation, gendered violence, violence against animals, violation of bodily autonomy, and death—so please take care of yourselves).

Also, a note about feminism, women, and girls: In this episode, we'll be talking about the experiences of characters this text presents as women and girls. But when we talk about women and girls we want to make very clear that we at Witch Please have an expansive definition of what that means and are working, in our own vocabulary to find ways of talking about feminist issues without automatically centering cis women. Trans women are women. People of marginalized genders across a variety of experiences may resonate with characters presented in this text as women and girls, and we support those readings. We've received some very generous feedback from listeners as to how we can use more inclusive and affirming language around gender, and we always welcome these critiques!

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