Quote:
Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin
There's no room in Tolkien's world - call him "misogynist" if you like - for Warrior She-Elves (largely a very, very recent staple of RPGs, movies, comic books etc, plus ancient legend where, again, they were exceptional (Hippolyta, Atalanta) or divine (Athena, the Valkyries). Eowyn is a Thang precisely because she is completely unique and unexpected; as for female Elves, Tolkien merely says that "at need" they would fight to defend their children and homes.
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I don't recall that note about female Elves fighting, though a similar observation was made in
UT about the Wainriders who had taken over the homes of the Northmen.
Quote:
Originally Posted by William Cloud Hicklin
But the notion that a female would have been Captain of the Guard, or for that matter a member of the Guard or of any regular military body - was alien to Tolkien's imagination (and real-world experience).
(It's to be noted that in the real world right down to the present day, females were not found in ground-combat arms of the world's militaries until the last few years).
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Not to turn this into any sort of socio-political debate, but the lack of female combat involvement in Tolkien's time and into recent years stemmed from a physical source, in addition to any sense of culture or tradition.
Having served some time in the military, I can speak to the fact that being a soldier is physically demanding. It requires not only a level of cardiovascular fitness (at which women actually can and do better men many times), but also a high degree of strength, especially upper body. Though today's weapons are much lighter in weight than in the past, it still needs physical power to carry and shoot combat arms such as shotguns, rifles, and machine guns. In earlier eras the strength required was much greater: wielding longswords and winding crossbows was many times limited even among men to the strongest. The idea of a slender Elf-woman having a position in Tolkien's Middle-earth that
required melee fighting as an occupation is utter rubbish.