The Role of Women in The Lord of the Rings

[Bêthberry]

I am sneaking in with a very quick comment about Eowyn. Tar-ancalime, you suggest that what Eowyn wants is choice and that back in Rohan she would not have choice. That is quite right. There were no other royal or noble families in Rohan from which she could have picked a husband. She had to look elsewhere. And her choice was invariably wound up with nobility, a Prince of Ithilien. And I would agree with Mr. Underhill that married life does not automatically exclude female empowerment. However, the context of Eowyn's marriage is clearly to suggest that she will return to a domestic sphere. It strikes me that Mr. Underhill is clearly engaging in imaginative extrapolation of the text when he envisages a feisty wife for Faramir. I don't sense any Lion in Winter suggestions here. (drat the book is not at hand to provide authoriative backing for my strongly stated position.)

I believe Eowyn is the only female character who is shown to be confused. She is conflicted about the men she is attracted to. And she is the only female character who is shown to be conflicted about the opportunity available to her. Does any other female character in LotR makes mistakes? (Yes, yes, we all know about how Galadriel is redeemed, but that miraculous reinvention takes place outside the trilogy.)

We are shown Goldberry happily ensconced in marriage with Tom. Arwen patiently waiting for Aragorn (her desperation and woe do come, but in the Appendices, to forestall any of you who wish to correct my point above () and even then she is not shown to be in err but to wish to forestall the inevitable.) There is never any question (in my mind at least) that Galadriel will fail the test. Sweet Rosie happily becomes a baby machine. (Why doesn't Eowyn have a baker's dozen? Are things different for the rich and wealthy?)

In short, in my snappy mood right now, I would concur with Master Hedgethistle that Eowyn is more a sympathetic depiction of a woman who is unhappy with women's lot--and made sympathetic because she renounces her ways--than any sort of suffragette. Feminist manqué.

I would quote from Tolkien's Letter to his son Michael where he offers a father's sage opinion about the other sex, wherein Tolkien states that women lack the capacity for original thought, but that wouldn't be fair now, would it, seeing as I don't think the letters are necessarily canonically authoritative.

My, I didn't think I had any lemon with my tea this afternoon.

[the phantom]

I just want to address one little thing that was said earlier.

And why is it that the men maintain their faith by doing whereas the women maintain their faith by waiting?

When you say "doing" should I assume you mean running around and fighting?

If that is indeed what you mean, Fordim, the answer is quite obvious.

In the Olympics this last summer do you realize that some of the women who won gold medals in running events would not have finished first in the Nebraska High School Boys Track Meet? Some of them wouldn't have even got a medal. The woman who won the gold medal in the 100 might not have even qualified for the final heat in our track meet. Yes, that's right. Multiple high school boys from one of the least populous states can beat the best women in the world in track.

Three years ago when I was playing more tennis I played a girl who won a couple of big women's tournaments in her state and I blanked her 6-0, 6-0.

So translate this to Middle-Earth. Would you really want a lot of women running around and fighting? If you say yes then I don't think you like women very much, because a lot of them would die if they were running around and fighting.

(and don't even start whining and saying I'm sexist, because I don't value men over women- I merely recognize physical differences between the sexes)

[Bêthberry]

Is it not possible that warfare involves just a teeny bit more strategy than track meets and, even, tennis? That the race might not be to the swift or the brawny but to the brainy? Well, I've watched Zulu at least three times and figure that regimental squares has the old assault tactics beat. But, of course, that movie completely overlooks what happened the day before.

I guess, though, by your lights, Middle earth was little more than the playing fields of Eton. You might be right.

Oh, I definitely must have had lemon with my tea today!

[Fordim Hedgethistle]

Never fear Phantom that I shall call you sexist – I’ve heard much worse in my day!

(I would say, however, that on the issue of men vs women as combat soldiers, it’s important to remember that wars are not fought by Olympic athletes; that is, you don’t have two groups of men in the absolute peak of physical perfection going at one another but to rather large groups drawn from the populace at large and trained to work as a team and not as individuals. Given that war is (sadly) a group and mass effort, individual differences between two people -- be they the result of gender, height, age, racial qualities -- matter very little; herendethelesson)

The point that I would like to make in response to your post has to do with the hobbits and their mode of heroic ‘doing’. I don’t think there’s anyone as can make a great claim for their abilities as warriors, including themselves. Their heroic ‘doing’ is defined by far more than their ability to wield swords (although Merry does wield a sword – alongside a woman – to conquer the most terrible enemy at the Pelennor Fields…). What they do could easily have been done – from the purely physical stand-point – by any of the women we’ve been talking about.

This raises two interesting points: first, given that there is a mode of heroic action that is explicitly defined as not-sword-wielding (which is what the women are excluded from) then their absence in the heroic doing becomes more pointed. That is, while I can see how in Tolkien’s Middle-Earth it doesn’t make a lot of sense for, say, oh, I don’t know, Arwen to ride a warhorse against the Nine and brandish a sword ( ), I can’t see any reason why a woman couldn’t march doggedly toward Mount Doom with the express purpose of avoiding combat altogether. The physical weakness of the hobbits only throws into starker relief that the women are being excluded from such tasks for reasons far beyond the fact of their (supposed) feminine-weakness (and I would just love to see someone argue as Frodo is more physically capable or strong than Galadriel!).

The second point is that this opens the door to the idea that perhaps the manner in which Sam and, in particular, Frodo ‘do’ their heroic deeds is somehow ‘feminine’? This ties in with the point made above by tar-ancalime that Frodo uses the phial of Galadriel to defeat Shelob, meaning that the anti-feminine ideal is defeated by the feminine-ideal, and not by men (like the Witch King, who is done in by a hobbit and a woman, not a “man”?). This would tend to support the idea of men and women in partnership – with Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli off doing the ‘manly’ sword waving (with, again, and notably, a significant bit of sword waving from Éowyn) while Pippin, Merry, Sam and Frodo are off doing the more ‘womanly’ jobs of saving the defenceless (it’s Pippin after all who saves Faramir and brings him to Ioreth in the Houses of Healing); caring for one another; bearing the phial of the ‘goddess’ Galadriel; and fulfilling prophecies that specifically call for heroes who aren’t men.

If this holds water then my thread began in the wrong way – rather than looking for the roles of women in relation to men, perhaps we should be looking at the relation of the feminine and the masculine, as these manifest in men and women both???


(Note to Bethberry: lemon is for fish, dearie, use honey in your tea.)

[Firefoot]

I find it interesting that Lobelia isn't mentioned at all in this thread. At first glance, she does not have a great many of the qualities of the other women mentioned in this thread (beauty, strength, faithfulness, and the like) but in her own way some of these are qualities she possesses.

First off, beauty. I don't think Tolkien ever particularly described her appearance, but her personality is so very sour that it seems that it would be almost enough to imagine her looks being the same way. Being that she is portrayed as a "baddie" for most of her time in both the Hobbit and LotR, this does not seem to go against the pattern that has seemingly developed for the women.

Next, strength. I will put perseverence in with this one, as they seem to go hand-in-hand. This is a quality that I think Lobelia has quite a bit of. Lobelia is one of the very few hobbits to stand up to the Ruffians, displaying courage and spunkiness. She showed great perseverence in her attempts to get Bag-end as well, waiting 80 or so years before it was finally hers, and even then she didn't get to hold onto it long. She did show some moral kindness and strength at the end of LotR as well when she let Frodo have Bag-end back.

Faithfulness. Strange as this may sound, Lobelia did stick behind Lotho towards the end, who did not return the favor to her in not getting her out of the Lockholes. Even if it wasn't perhaps going toward the right motives, it was her family, and it shows somthing about her character that she sticks by her family.

[Evisse the Blue]

This is a fascinating discussion and it's heading in an interesting direction, but I have something to say that's a bit off-topic, concerning Lobelia, whom Firefoot talked about in detail. I think through this character, Tolkien was trying to underline the difference between the evil and the dislikeable. In our day to day mundane world we seldom meet evil incarnate, rather these annoying pesky individuals, which our imagination turns into monsters come to torture us. People often act this way, applying the attribute of 'bad' to one whom they dislike. Frodo's higher wisdom and his deeper knowledge of evil at the end of his quest made him more tolerant to Lobelia's ways.
To get more on topic: I agree with Firefoot that beyond Lobelia's annoying surface lies the traditional feminine creature, protective and caring towards her family and faithful towards those whom she loved. One can argue she's even got a bit of Eowyn in her when she attacks the ruffians with her umbrella!

[Mister Underhill]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

However, the context of Eowyn's marriage is clearly to suggest that she will return to a domestic sphere.

My point is that the men also return to a domestic sphere. Sam, Merry, and Pippin marry and settle down. Faramir makes a garden. After Sauron is defeated, warriors and heroic deeds are no longer required. Everyone can now move to the life they were fighting for.

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

It strikes me that Mr. Underhill is clearly engaging in imaginative extrapolation of the text when he envisages a feisty wife for Faramir.

I think you're the one who's extrapolating, or else just plain inventing. Éowyn is a feisty character prior to marriage. There's no reason to suppose that her essential nature changes after she finds love with Faramir -- unless you're determined to view her as a sellout. Her first action after she agrees to Faramir's proposal is to contradict the Warden of the Houses when he releases her into Faramir's care: "Yet now that I have leave to depart, I would remain." Her turn from death and slaying to become a healer and "lover of all things that grow and are not barren" is part of a wider motif of a spring flowering in Middle-earth with the passing of the Shadow. The White Tree blossoms, the Mallorn grows in the Shire, babies are born.

As to your comments regarding Rosie, well, I'll chalk them up to your self-admitted snappiness. Suffice to say that I hope you aren't suggesting that her role as wife and mother at large is somehow dishonorable or shameful.

Lastly, perhaps you ought to at least toss out the number of the letter you reference so that interested parties can get some context, instead of just dropping veiled suggestions that Tolkien was a raging mysogynist. Who knows? Maybe the prof had lemon with his tea when he was composing that day.