Don't do me like that

[Lush]

Originally Posted by Thinlómien

Or what say you, o mighty threadmistress Lush?

I say, rock on.

Originally Posted by alatar

So what's the game?

Hmmm. If alatar was paying attention to my conversation with davem, as opposed to trying to electronically poke me in the ribs, he might know the answer to his question.

Raynor, I've read these letters before, and was not particularly surprised by them, but I am not entirely sure that they directly relate to representations of women in LotR. Remember, someone like Galadriel is very independent in her thinking and her deeds. Perhaps there are some clearer connections you could draw for us? Or are there none?

[alatar]

Originally Posted by Lush

Hmmm. If alatar was paying attention to my conversation with davem, as opposed to trying to electronically poke me in the ribs, he might know the answer to his question.

Sorry, as I just couldn't help but post even though all has been made clear, and though I've tried to remember all that I've read (forget understanding it all, as I'm just a simple person) I blame my post on child-induced amnesia. Have children, can't remember a blessed thing .

And I'm sending anti-rib pokes to cancel out those sent before.

[Raynor]

Perhaps there are some clearer connections you could draw for us?

My point concering the letters was that Tolkien mirrored the world of his time which was not conducive to building up female heroes - only as exceptions, since by and large the women were considered inferior in range of preocupations, expectations and initiative.

Even in the case of Eowyn, daughter of a king, the same prejudices concerning the role of females (which take the form of social mores or even institutuinalized rules) apply just the same as apparently during Tolkien's times:

Originally Posted by The house of healing

- My friend, said Gandalf, you had horses, and deeds of arms, and the free fields; but she, born in the body of a maid, had a spirit and courage at least the match of yours. Yet she was doomed to wait upon an old man, whom she loved as a father, and watch him falling into a mean dishonoured dotage; and her part seemed to her more ignoble than that of the staff he leaned on.

Her situation reflects, in the words of Johan Galtung, an institutionalized violence against women (rules which prohibit equal opportunities of development), which is necessarily based on a cultural violence (the idea that women are inferior in status/abilities/values/worth).

[davem]

Maybe its because I'm male that I don't feel the absence of more strong female characters in LotR. Perhaps because I don't feel that 'absence' I don't wonder why Tolkien didn't put them in, or what the story would be like if there were more of them.

At the same time, I wonder why there's a focus on the absence of female characters. Why aren't there more strong animal characters - fairy stories are full of magical beasts. Why aren't there flying machines, why aren't there more (fill in the blank)....

Maybe there's something to be gained by analysing the absence of women in Lotr, & the role women play in the Legendarium as a whole. The danger, though, is that in focussing on what's not there you may miss what is there. By concentrating on what Tolkien didn't say, you may fail to hear what he was saying. (I note that nowhere in any of her posts on this thread has Lush mentioned the first manned space flight. I can't help wondering what this tells us about her, or what her posts would have been like if she had brought in Yuri Gagarin....)

[Lush]

davem, I can only wonder if you would have said the same sort of things about the issue and about me if, say, this thread was about the absence/presence religion in Middle Earth.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Lush

davem, I can only wonder if you would have said the same sort of things about the issue and about me if, say, this thread was about the absence/presence religion in Middle Earth.

Probably not, but that was one of Tolkien's central concerns in the Legendarium (to justify the ways of Eru to Man, if you like). Writing strong female characters was not.

What is the impact on the tale of Tolkien's conscious decision to remove most of the tale of Arwen and Aragorn to the Appendices? How might it have affected the story had this detail been included in the body of the tale itself?

It would probably have cluttered & confused it, as it did with the movie, because that's not what Tolkien is about in LotR. He explored those themes in Beren & Luthien. A writer can't possibly say everything he wants to say in a single story without losing control of it & having it 'leap on to its horse & gallop off in all directions'. 'Aragorn & Arwen' contains important background for the story of LotR, but if the events in it were brought into the foreground (as Tolkien realised) they would detract from the central story - which is Frodo's, not Aragorn's.

[The Saucepan Man]

.. but this may simply stand as a passing comment.

It seems to me that the point Lush was making was that, whenever the issue of gender in relation to Tolkien's writings is raised, many feel a natural impulse to defend Tolkien (for example by reference to the time he lived in or the nature of women in the "real world") rather than considering the issues raised further. Some of the responses on this thread would appear to bear her out.

In my view, there is certainly an interesting discussion to be had concerning the absence of (many) strong female characters in LotR. Why (from the point of the story, as opposed to "real life" issues - historical and contemporary) is this so? What is its impact on the story? What is the impact on the story of the manner in which those female characters who are present are portrayed?

Child and Lalwendë have identified a number of questions concerning those female characters who are present which would make for more fruitful debate than simply a frothy to-ing and fro-ing on the fact of their absence in siginicant numbers.

Here are some more that occured to me:

What is the impact on the tale of Tolkien's conscious decision to remove most of the tale of Arwen and Aragorn to the Appendices? How might it have affected the story had this detail been included in the body of the tale itself?

Is it fair to say that most of the main female characters who are present in the tale (and the Legendarium) are defined, to a large extent, by their beauty (and/or fecundity)? If not, why (again, in terms of its impact on the story) are most of the main female characters "beautiful" in traditional terms? The only two I can think of who are portrayed as postively "un-beautiful" are Shelob (and her Mirkwood spawn, I suppose) and Thuringwethil (and I am not sure about the latter). And the only "plain" female character I can think of is Ioreth. Perhaps there are more. Yet many of the male characters are not defined by reference to their physical appearance (Aragorn, for example, "looks foul but feels fair"). What are the reasons for this (again, in terms of how it impacts upon the story).

Now I shall probably sit back and watch the discussion continue.

Oh, and behave ...

[Mister Underhill]

Originally Posted by Fordim

Put another way, having a woman in the Fellowship might have -- to Tolkien's mind -- proved to be a distraction insofar as the point of his tale is about the Ring and it's effect on Frodo and the others around him; to have a woman there so pointedly being, well, a woman and not a man might have introduced a theme or idea that does not directly 'play' to the one that the Fellowship was supposed to play toward??

It seems to me that it would be highly uncharacteristic of JRRT to create in this manner: to consider the analytical impact of story choices as opposed to considering the artistic impact. In other words, his method seems to have been "does this work as a story element" rather than "does this work to bring out what I'm trying to say on this subject". In all the copious notes published in HoME VI-VIII, I can't remember one in which Tolkien wrestles with critical/analytical issues as your post imagines that he might. He seems to be most concerned with making his narrative work as a story.

Originally Posted by Lush

I've successfully proven that time and time again, the subject of gender flattens the discussion to the level of the dismissive (and, in my opinion, quite rude) "Go read something else!"

Much as I enjoy your knack for creating lively threads, Lush, I think all that's been proven here is that it's easy to provoke a certain type of response with a certain type of topic.

You started the thread off with a rant against people who dismiss questions about why there aren't more females in LotR with simple explanations. Okay, I get that it bugs you. But there are inevitably boneheaded replies to any topic, from Balrog wings to Elf ears.

As has been mentioned, the question itself is sort of self-limiting. LotR doesn't have a lot of female characters. Why? Over the years, I've seen as many reductive boneheaded replies for "why" as for "why not": "Tolkien doesn't understand women"; "Tolkien doesn't like women"; "Tolkien believes women should be pretty, barefoot, and pregnant", etc. If you have gained new insight into this question from your recent studies of Tatar and fairy-tale, I'm pretty sure you haven't really articulated them yet, and you certainly didn't share them in your first post.

There aren't a lot of female characters in LotR. In the end Tolkien didn't write them and we can only guess at why or why not. In my view it probably wasn't because of any particular conscious agenda one way or the other. Is there really a lot of meat on this bone that hasn't been chewed yet?

On the other hand, I think that the idea that gender discussions automatically produce a knee-jerk result isn't borne out by Downs history.

Over the years, there have been numerous thoughtful discussions of gender in LotR, as well as deep discussions of the individual female characters that are present in the work. Fordim's recent "Calling all women", Birdland's "Tolkien the Matricide", and Child's old "The 'Fair' Sex in LotR", for instance, all tackle Tolkien in relation to gender with interesting results (ironically, doing a quick search of "Tolkien sexist" will fetch all these topics). Topics on Galadriel, Arwen, and Éowyn have all yielded fruitful, albeit sometimes fiery, results as well.

In other words, a good topic breeds good discussion, even if there will be the inevitable amount of "noise" in the form of knucklehead replies.

Several topics have already been suggested which I bet could spin into interesting threads.

[Lush]

Originally Posted by Mister Underhill

Much as I enjoy your knack for creating lively threads, Lush, I think all that's been proven here is that it's easy to provoke a certain type of response with a certain type of topic.

You started the thread off with a rant against people who dismiss questions about why there aren't more females in LotR with simple explanations. Okay, I get that it bugs you. But there are inevitably boneheaded replies to any topic, from Balrog wings to Elf ears.

As has been mentioned, the question itself is sort of self-limiting. LotR doesn't have a lot of female characters. Why? Over the years, I've seen as many reductive boneheaded replies for "why" as for "why not": "Tolkien doesn't understand women"; "Tolkien doesn't like women"; "Tolkien believes women should be pretty, barefoot, and pregnant", etc. If you have gained new insight into this question from your recent studies of Tatar and fairy-tale, I'm pretty sure you haven't really articulated them yet, and you certainly didn't share them in your first post.

There aren't a lot of female characters in LotR. In the end Tolkien didn't write them and we can only guess at why or why not. In my view it probably wasn't because of any particular conscious agenda one way or the other. Is there really a lot of meat on this bone that hasn't been chewed yet?

Actually, I started this thread with a very specific question - absence of women in the Fellowship - and a very specific criticism - one which Lalaith nailed on the head much better than I did when I attempted it, in mind. It has morphed from then on out.

On the other hand, I think that the idea that gender discussions automatically produce a knee-jerk result isn't borne out by Downs history.

Over the years, there have been numerous thoughtful discussions of gender in LotR, as well as deep discussions of the individual female characters that are present in the work. Fordim's recent "Calling all women", Birdland's "Tolkien the Matricide", and Child's old "The 'Fair' Sex in LotR", for instance, all tackle Tolkien in relation to gender with interesting results (ironically, doing a quick search of "Tolkien sexist" will fetch all these topics). Topics on Galadriel, Arwen, and Éowyn have all yielded fruitful, albeit sometimes fiery, results as well.

In other words, a good topic breeds good discussion, even if there will be the inevitable amount of "noise" in the form of knucklehead replies.

Several topics have already been suggested which I bet could spin into interesting threads.

I wasn't criticising the Downs in general, but a very specific strain of thought in particular.