Eowyn and feminism and Tolkien

[Aiwendil]

I don't deny for an instant that Eowyn had a kind of 'soul sickness', that she was hopeless and sought death. Nor that it is good that she recovers from it - as it would be whether the sufferer were a man or a woman.

I just can't help but to feel that there is a rightness in her words to Aragorn. The constraints she feels are real (if they were not, there would be no need for her disguise), and regardless of her motive, she is right to question them. Moreover, as I see it, her 'sickness', her hopelessness, is in part caused by those very constraints. Is it so difficult to sympathize with her when she says:

Shall I always be left behind when the Riders depart, to mind the house while they win renown, and find food and beds when they return?

or:

All your words are but to say: you are a woman, and your part is in the house. But when the men have died in battle and honour, you have leave to be burned in the house, for the men will need it no more.

I for one can't help but to be moved by these words, and even though she is grim and soul-sick and in need of healing, I cannot brush them aside as symptoms of an ill mind.