[Finwe]

Bravo! Greetings to a fellow Eowyn admirer!

I deem it highly unfortunate that so fine a character become tainted with the foul stench of sexism. Tolkien was most definitely not sexist. He was heavily influenced by the feminine, mainly his mother and his wife, in both his life and his writings. He celebrated and worshipped the principle of the feminine, and it is the gravest invective to label him a sexist.

Modern readers have become used to the sort of story where female characters come bursting in to save the day with guns flaming, pulchritude straining against the barely-buttoned top of their designer safari suit, and makeup done to perfection. Yes indeed, rather unfortunate, although I do admit, Lady Lara Croft has her attractions. Tolkien was writing an epic for a different time and age. In Middle-earth, women were delegated different niches in their environment. Yes, they were expected to generally remain behind in the home and watch over it. What insult is there in that? As Aragorn said, some of the greatest deeds are done in the last defence (or something to that effect) of one's home and people. In this day and age, we have become so used to empowered women that reading about a seemingly less-empowered woman immediately results in calls to arms. Who says Eowyn wasn't empowered? Who says that Galadriel and Goldberry weren't empowered? If they were intelligent to make the men do the fighting and mucking about, then kudos to them! They made the best of their lives, and in a situation like the one at the end of the Third Age, they should be commended for it, not slighted.