Don't do me like that

[davem]

Numenorean. I can see where you're coming from, but I think its far more likely that Tolkien was emphasising the relative uniqueness of the people of Haleth (& of Eowyn) rather than holding them up as typical.

At the same time I accept that the way Tolkien uses the term 'Shieldmaiden' to refer to Eowyn does imply that she was not a total one-off (why would there be a term for women warriors if there weren't at least a few of them around?) Of course 'shieldmaiden' does derive from norse tradition:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shieldmaiden.

I can only repeat that women warriors are almost as rare as hen's teeth in Tolkien's writings - though not so rare as some readers might think, still rare enough that when they do appear its pointed out as something out of the ordinary.

As history clearly shows, women were (and are) more than a match for and often surpass men in combat,

is perhaps going a bit too far the other way, though.