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Kyriel
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Apr 28 2010, 9:57am
Post #26 of 69
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They actually really did this in the LotR movies, you know
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A lot of the Rohirrim extras were women with beards. I thought that was pretty cool.
Of course, they weren't meant to be female Rohirrim; they were just background horsemen/women.
Those left standing will make millions writing books on the way it should have been. --Incubus
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Kyriel
Forum Admin
/ Moderator
Apr 28 2010, 10:03am
Post #27 of 69
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Tolkien was a charter member of the...
Those left standing will make millions writing books on the way it should have been. --Incubus
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Kangi Ska
Gondolin
Apr 28 2010, 11:29am
Post #28 of 69
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There were also female Orcs.//
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Kangi Ska
There is no place like the Shire...There is no place like the Shire...There is no place like the Shire...
At night one cannot tell if crows are black or white.
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Kangi Ska
Gondolin
Apr 28 2010, 11:34am
Post #29 of 69
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He grew up in an age when the relationships between men and women were quite different. It was not hate but a very Victorian respect for women.
Kangi Ska
There is no place like the Shire...There is no place like the Shire...There is no place like the Shire...
At night one cannot tell if crows are black or white.
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macfalk
Doriath
Apr 28 2010, 1:46pm
Post #30 of 69
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Just because there were no main character in The Hobbit which was female doesn't make him a woman-hater.
Tolkiens time was different from ours.
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GAndyalf
Doriath
Apr 28 2010, 8:54pm
Post #31 of 69
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<Somewhere, my "baby sister" is smiling broadly>//
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"Be good, be careful, have fun, don't get arrested!"
---Marcia Michelle Alexander Hamilton, 7 Nov 1955 - 19 Nov 2009
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geordie
Dor-Lomin
Apr 28 2010, 10:08pm
Post #32 of 69
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This is one of my hobby-horses
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- Tolkien was no mysogonist, and at the same time the lack of female characters in TH and LotR has little to do with the times in which he lived (which, by the way, include some of _my_ 'times', as his lifetime and mine overlapped a little!)
To say that Tolkien was influenced by his times is almost to try and excuse him; to imply that he couldn't help it, poor soul; he was 'a product of his times' I hear some say. Which, it seems to me, is to suppose that he couldn't think independently. He could. Take for instance his work at Oxford. Oxford University was seen at the time as a mainly male establishment, yet Tolkien's students included many women, many of whom later became friends of himself and his family. Take Elaine Griffiths, for example. Elaine was instrumental in the publication of The Hobbit; she was also later head of St Anne's College, Oxford, and one-time Chair of the English faculty.
To give an idea of the male-female ratio at the time The Hobbit was published - there was a book for sale recently which was signed by eleven members of a group called the 'cave'. An informal group of teachers in the English school at Oxford, formed to help usher in Tolkien's proposed changes to the curriculum. Tolkien and Lewis were the founders, and after its success, the group continued to meet on a social basis, much like the Inklings. Except that, of eleven signatories in this book (given as a joke 'prize' for best reading at one of their meetings), five were women - including at least two (Whitelock and Everett) who were acknowledged as experts in their respective fields.
Tolkien was not 'a product of his times' in his attitude towards women; no more than in his approach to professing his subject at Oxford, nor in writing his fiction. Tolkien was, well: Tolkien.
(This post was edited by geordie on Apr 28 2010, 10:10pm)
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Patty
Elvenhome
Apr 28 2010, 10:41pm
Post #34 of 69
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And weren't some of the elven warriors at Helm's deep female, too? /
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Permanent address: Into the West
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Kangi Ska
Gondolin
Apr 28 2010, 10:46pm
Post #35 of 69
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Not sure about that, but someone will know.//
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Kangi Ska
There is no place like the Shire...There is no place like the Shire...There is no place like the Shire...
At night one cannot tell if crows are black or white.
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Ethel Duath
Gondolin
Apr 28 2010, 11:52pm
Post #36 of 69
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Professional women musicians unite!
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Kyriel
Forum Admin
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Apr 29 2010, 10:27am
Post #37 of 69
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Oh, for crying out loud, y'all
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It. Was. A. Joke.  
Those left standing will make millions writing books on the way it should have been. --Incubus
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Darkstone
Elvenhome
Apr 29 2010, 1:35pm
Post #38 of 69
(3688 views)
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I'll distract them.
******************************************
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Sometime hours and hours hence:
In The Green Dragon two ales could buy
And drank the one less filling I
And that has made all the difference.
- The Ale Less Filling, by Robert Frostymug
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Annael
Elvenhome
Apr 29 2010, 2:59pm
Post #39 of 69
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some of his letters express less than admiration for his women students.
The way we imagine our lives is the way we are going to go on living our lives.
- James Hillman, Healing Fiction
* * * * * * * * * *
NARF and member of Deplorable Cultus since 1967
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Patty
Elvenhome
Apr 29 2010, 3:47pm
Post #40 of 69
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Hey, maybe we really will see a Female Village Elder this time. /
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Permanent address: Into the West
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Darkstone
Elvenhome
Apr 29 2010, 4:45pm
Post #41 of 69
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I recall in Mary Renault's biography she described how Tolkien treated female students.
Renault also defied his advice regarding the publication of her first novel, Purposes of Love, which was considered pretty naughty for the time. He wasn't too pleased.
******************************************
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Sometime hours and hours hence:
In The Green Dragon two ales could buy
And drank the one less filling I
And that has made all the difference.
- The Ale Less Filling, by Robert Frostymug
(This post was edited by Darkstone on Apr 29 2010, 4:55pm)
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geordie
Dor-Lomin
Apr 29 2010, 4:57pm
Post #42 of 69
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- which students? - and what does he have to say, specifically?
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geordie
Dor-Lomin
Apr 29 2010, 4:59pm
Post #43 of 69
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- but it's still a good topic starter.
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Darkstone
Elvenhome
Apr 29 2010, 5:12pm
Post #44 of 69
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”The woman is another fallen human-being with a soul in peril. But combined and harmonized with religion (as long ago it [chivalry] was, producing much of that beautiful devotion to Our Lady that has been God’s way of refining so much our gross manly natures and emotions, and also of warming and colouring our hard, bitter, religion) it can be very noble.” (Letter 43)
”You may meet in life (as in literature) women who are flighty, or even plain wanton—I don’t refer merely to flirtatiousness, the sparring practice for real combat, but to women who are too silly to take even love seriously, or are actually so depraved as to enjoy ‘conquests’, or even enjoy the giving of pain—but these are abnormalities, even though false teaching, bad upbringing, and corrupt fashions may encourage them. Much though modern conditions have changed feminine circumstances, and the detail of what is considered propriety, they have not changed the natural instinct. A man has a life-work, a career (and male friends), all of which could (and do where he has any guts) survive the shipwreck of ‘love’. A young woman, even one ‘economically independent’ as they say now (it usually really means economic subservience to male commercial employers instead of to a father or a family), begins to think of the ‘bottom drawer’ and dream of a home, almost at once.” (Letter 43)
”If they [women] have any delusion it is that they can ‘reform’ men. They will take a rotter open-eyed, and even when the delusion of reforming him fails, go on loving him. They are, of course, much more realistic about the sexual relation. Unless perverted by bad contemporary fashions they do not as a rule talk ‘bawdy’; not because they are purer than men (they are not) but because they don’t find it funny.”(Letter 43)
******************************************
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Sometime hours and hours hence:
In The Green Dragon two ales could buy
And drank the one less filling I
And that has made all the difference.
- The Ale Less Filling, by Robert Frostymug
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GAndyalf
Doriath
Apr 29 2010, 5:13pm
Post #45 of 69
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Given Lorien's proximity to Dol Guldur...
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And given that it was probably "on the agenda" before the Council met, I'd venture a guess that's not documented but at least logical that it was in Lothlorien.
"Be good, be careful, have fun, don't get arrested!"
---Marcia Michelle Alexander Hamilton, 7 Nov 1955 - 19 Nov 2009
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geordie
Dor-Lomin
Apr 29 2010, 5:21pm
Post #46 of 69
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I thought that's what you were thinking of. The thing is, this isn't a letter about Tolkien's women students; nor even a letter about women in general (believe it or not). In context, it's a 'fatherly advice' letter from Tolkien to his son Michael, during the war. Michael had been in hospital, and was contemplating marriage to his nurse. Tolkien thought that he was a bit young for this; and what with there being a war on (and the fact that this was all a bit sudden and all) he was a bit chary of the idea. As it happens, things seem to have worked out in the end.
But, this is not my idea of an example of Tolkien's attitudes to his students; female or otherwise. Not when taking the whole situation in context, that is.
(This post was edited by geordie on Apr 29 2010, 5:22pm)
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N.E. Brigand
Gondolin
Apr 29 2010, 7:34pm
Post #47 of 69
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From the same letter -- the quote was handy thanks to Modtheow's July 2005 contribution to the RR Letters discussion:
The sexual impulse makes women (naturally when unspoiled more unselfish) very sympathetic and understanding, or specially desirous of being so (or seeming so), and very ready to enter into all the interest, as far as they can, from ties to religion, of the young man they are attracted to. No intent necessarily to deceive: sheer instinct: the servient, helpmeet instinct, generously warmed by desire and young blood. Under this impulse they can in fact often achieve very remarkable insight and understanding, even of things otherwise outside their natural range: for it is their gift to be receptive, stimulated, fertilized (in many other matters than the physical) by the male. Every teacher knows that. How quickly an intelligent woman can be taught, grasp his ideas, see his point – and how (with rare exceptions) they can go no further, when they leave his hand, or when they cease to take a personal interest in him.
Though as you say, the opinions of his female students like S.R.T.O. d'Ardenne and Mary Salu are at odds with this passage. Squire noted the same contradiction in his review of Douglas Anderson's J.R.R. Tolkien Encyclopedia article on d'Ardenne. (And to that Encyclopedia, Modtheow herself contributed a couple articles relevant to this discussion, at least one of which cites the same letter.)
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Discuss Tolkien’s life and works in the Reading Room!
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Darkstone
Elvenhome
Apr 29 2010, 8:10pm
Post #48 of 69
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In an interview for her biography she discusses at length Tolkien's treatment of her and other female students. Have you read it?
For his part Tolkien briefly mentions her in letter 249.
******************************************
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Sometime hours and hours hence:
In The Green Dragon two ales could buy
And drank the one less filling I
And that has made all the difference.
- The Ale Less Filling, by Robert Frostymug
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FarFromHome
Doriath
Apr 30 2010, 1:20am
Post #49 of 69
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In an interview for her biography she discusses at length Tolkien's treatment of her and other female students.
It would be interesting to know something about Tolkien's treatment of female students and compare it to the behaviour prevalent at the time towards women in academia - there are some shocking details of the situation at Cambridge in James Watson's The Double Helix, for example.
They went in, and Sam shut the door.
But even as he did so, he heard suddenly,
deep and unstilled,
the sigh and murmur of the Sea upon the shores of Middle-earth.
From the unpublished Epilogue to the Lord of the Rings
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Darkstone
Elvenhome
Apr 30 2010, 3:05am
Post #50 of 69
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Tolkien sympathized greatly with his female students, and female students in general at Oxford. He would often invite them over to his home and tutor them. (He felt the other professors neglected females in classrooms and that females had a harder time of it in college.) This activity was something Edith could join in on, and it helped Edith out of her shell and into academic society. (Ms. Renault was a student of Tolkien in the 1920s.)
Ms. Renault also said Tolkien encouraged and supported women students who aspired to become writers, critiquing their manuscripts and writing them reference letters to publishers and agents.
Ms. Renault and Tolkien did have a dispute over the publication of her first novel, Purposes of Love. It was very racy for its time, and had hints of male and female homosexuality. Anyway, Ms. Renault wanted to use a male pseudonym, but Tolkien strongly objected, urging her to publish under her own name, or at least a female pseudonym. Indeed, she says that Tolkien strongly encouraged all the young aspiring female writers he came into contact with to reject the trend of the time for females to write under male pseudonyms and instead use their own names.
(Ironically, in the fifties many critics were convinced that she was a male writer writing under a female pseudonym!)
As for Tolkien, from Letter 294:
"There are exceptions. I have read all that E. R. Eddison wrote, in spite of his peculiarly bad nomenclature and personal philosophy. I was greatly taken by the book that was (I believe) the runner-up when The L. R. was given the Fantasy Award, 'Death of Grass'. I enjoy the S.F. of Isaac Azimov. Above these, I was recently deeply engaged in the books of Mary Renault; especially the two about Theseus, The King Must Die, and The Bull from the Sea. A few days ago I actually received a card of appreciation from her; perhaps the piece of ‘Fan-mail’ that gives me most pleasure."
Note that like most of Renault’s novels, The King Must Die and The Bull From the Sea dealt sympathetically with male and female homosexual characters.
Ms. Renault died in 1983, renowned as one of the 20th century's greatest authors of gay literature.
(Hmmm. Maybe Tolkien wasn’t such a misogynist after all.)
Still, I recall one famous female writer, I think it was Dorothy Sayers, sat down at the “Men Only” Inklings table and was politely but firmly asked to leave.
******************************************
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Sometime hours and hours hence:
In The Green Dragon two ales could buy
And drank the one less filling I
And that has made all the difference.
- The Ale Less Filling, by Robert Frostymug
(This post was edited by Darkstone on Apr 30 2010, 3:13am)
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