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I grew up in a very religious conservative home. My parents love LOTR, Narnia, Marvel, Star Wars, etc.

But we weren’t allowed to read Harry Potter. The reason given was that “fictional magic is usually ok, but HP is teaching you that anyone can go to a magic school and learn witchcraft.”

Now, you have to understand that they believed in real-life witchcraft. Real people apparently draw pentagrams, contact demons, and get effective results. They had cautionary tales about Ouija boards gone wrong, and that sort of thing.

But imagine my surprise when I grew up and married someone who is a huge HP fan, and I finally watched all the movies and listened to the audiobooks. And guess what? It’s literally the fucking opposite of “anyone can learn witchcraft.” It’s literally about people who are born with or without the ability do magic and the fascist villain wants to torture, enslave, and kill non-magic people.

So where did my parents get their entirely wrong idea? From some Satanic Panic fearmongering fundamentalist/evangelical leader. Maybe it was the same one who told them that “any music with drums is basically pornography.”

So nah, I don’t think it’s about women authors - that’s probably another issue. It’s whether the works are popular enough and have enough buzz words that some religious leader is able to latch onto it and scare people into being outraged by it, banking on the assumption that they won’t actually read it.

In fact, that’s a running theme - assume people won’t think for themselves or learn any facts about anything they’re told be outraged about.