Females in the Fellowship

[Lily Bracegirdle]

I first read LotR when I was 12, and I definitely had a hard time relating to most of the characters until Eowyn showed up. At 12 you think anyone over 25 is ancient, so I couldn't identify with 50-year-old hobbits and 89-year-old Men, not to mention the thousand-odd-year-old elves. The idealized women were too idealized for me to relate to and didn't (as I thought then) *do* much of anything. Sure, Galadriel contested with the Eye, but we never got to *see* any of that. All we saw was: "Here, Frodo, have this phial" (Galadriel) and "Aragorn, I knitted you this flag" (Arwen). Eowyn was a breath of fresh air because she acted like a real (flawed) human being and she actually got to *do* something heroic that was central to the story (and not mentioned in passing like Galadriel). If Eowyn hadn't been in the book, I doubt I would have finished reading it all those years ago.

Was LotR sexist? Probably no more than anything else written back then. (Idealizing women is also considered sexist because it treats women like angels and not like people.) Would it have been unrealistic to have a female in the Fellowship? Back then, yes. Would it have enhanced my enjoyment if Tolkien *had* written a woman in the Fellowship? Yes, but Eowyn was great, too. Do I condone retrofitting amazon babes into the story *now* to appeal to modern audiences? Absolutely not. I'm glad Arwen's role in the movie was toned down from the original "warrior princess" concept to the more sedate Arwen we've seen so far and hope that she won't be seen on the Pelennor. For better or worse, Tolkien wrote his women the way he did, and they should be left alone. Finally, can good authors transcend gender barriers and write believable members of the opposite sex? Yes, definitely. I think a good author has a grasp of what it means to be human, and since all of us are human regardless of what parts we've got, it should be possible. Shakespeare is a good example. Juliet and Lady MacBeth were great female characters.

-Lily