"Do You Hate Women?"

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Faramir Jones

After asking it, she then undercut her own question, saying that Tolkien 'started writing incredibly well for women in the 1970s, once the women's lib movement happened'. She said that what Tolkien did in the 1930s was 'then not so much'. It was 'a societal thing'.

In my view, if Ms. Lilly began with such a provocative question to Tolkien, of 'Do you hate women?' I would have expected her to be ready to defend it; but she undercut it by a claim which showed her ignorance of Tolkien and his works, including that he died in 1973.

She then groped towards a coherent point when she said that Tolkien's writing in the 1930s was influenced by the society in which he grew up in and in which he lived, like the works of any writer. Certainly he was educated in, worked in, and socialised in mostly male-dominated environments, which may have influenced what he wrote; but it's not an indication of any 'hate' regarding women, a very strong term to use.

The problem was that she had already showed (in my opinion) she didn't have the evidence (shown by her ignorance about Tolkien in the 1970s) to coherently argue her question.

What do you and others think of this?

Oh, all right, I will chime in about Lilly. Faramir's telling arguments about her quotes are too much to ignore.

"Feminism" did not start in the 1970's, Ms Lilly, so Tolkien just might have heard about women's rights before then. You might want to do some reading on the Suffragettes and other women's groups who won the right for women to vote in the early century. You might also want to consider the impact of Betty Freidan's 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique regarding the timing of feminism. You might furthermore want to check out what Tolkien said about Simone de Beauvoir, who is known for her 1949 book, The Second Sex, which had just a wee bit of feminist influence.

Ms Lilly might also be well advised to read some early Tolkien writing, in BoLT. Or, heck , even the Silm, for evidence of and development of female characters. TH was written for Tolkien's sons and it is quite possible that he deliberately left out female characters because of them, not because of some misguided attitude towards women.

And, finally, I would recommend Ms Lilly and anyone else read some of David Doughan's work on Tolkien and women. He is an erudite and educated long time reader of Tolkien and member of the Society which bears the author's name. His articles are available in old editions of the Tolkien Society's magazine, Mallorn. David examines Tolkien's treatment of his students at Oxford, specifically his mentoring of graduate female students, several of whom went on to distinguished work. David also does a good job putting Tolkien's letter to his son which questions women's abilities in a particular personal context, possibly to dissuade him from a particular marriage prospect. Check out his 1995 and 2008 papers, references to which can be found here

Bothersome ignorant actress.

And concerning Jane Austen's attitude towards men . . . well, sadly, her sibling heirs destroyed most of her letters, so we have hardly any strong biographical sources. She did have several brothers, though.

EDIT: I still think it would have been brilliant to turn some of the dwarves into women. But then I am currently reading Viriginia Woolf's Orlando, after whom I believe the Legolas actor was named.