Let’s talk about wizards and witches. There is a tendency to talk of them in one breath, as though they were simply different sexual labels for the same job. It isn’t true. In the fantasy world, there is no such thing as a male witch. […]
Sorceress? Just a better class of witch. Enchantress? Just a witch with good legs. The fantasy world, in fact, is overdue for a visit from the Equal Opportunities people because, in the fantasy world, magic done by women is usually of poor quality, third-rate, negative stuff, while the wizards are usually cerebral, clever, powerful and wise. […]
According to my eight-year-old daughter’s book on wizards, a nicely illustrated little paperback available at any good bookshop, ‘wizards undid the harm caused by evil witches’. There it is again, the recurrent message: female magic is cheap and nasty. […]
It’s going to be a long time before there’s room for equal rites.
Sir Terry Pratchett, “Why Gandalf Never Married”, A Slip of the Keyboard.
If you want to read the full essay, which is packed with more insight than posted above, you can find it here.
(via oldstonefacevimes)
One of the many, many reasons I loved Pratchett’s magic series – the Unseen University, the Granny Weatherwax books, the Tiffany Aching series – is that he built this dichotomy into the story – showed the sexism and showed the ways in which it might be overcome or even used to benefit others. There’s no doubt that Tiffany, for example, is more powerful than any of the wizards at the University; that she is unrecognized for this is part of the point.
And so much of what witches and wizards do is not magic, and is not magic in very different ways – witches’ medicines and visits and assistance only rarely incorporates magic but they are out there doing good every day, while wizards use their magic as a bludgeon, so that whenever they’re not doing magic, the absence of harm from it is somehow considered a benefit. It’s a fascinating universe Pratchett cooked up and I love how much it’s given me to think about over the decades.
(via leupagus)
just moving along like everyone else 