The Tolkien Writing guide Part II:
The Women of Middle Earth
Or: "She always knows her place, she's got style, she's got grace, she's a winner…"
Important characteristics of the Tolkien woman:
Human:
Scarcity. You don't see a frightful lot of them around. Probably spend a lot of time dying in childbirth.
Height. Generally coupled with "fair," "slender," and if possible "graceful." There are no short, buxom females in Tolkien, unless you count giant spiders.
Seriously Bad Fate. Dating your brother, everyone you know dying, throwing yourself off high things, etc. See the Silmarillion for many examples.
Limited Romantic Opportunities. Elves never fall in love with mortal women. It's always the other way around. Besides, the fact that other Elves don't want to date them should provide a clue that this is a bad idea. Dating dwarves and hobbits is going to be considered out of the question by most. The Ringwraiths are rumored to be dead, or worse, already dating each other. Orcs are big and strong, but have bad hair and rather limited conversation. Wait, so do Men… Hm…
Stepping Out of Line: Punishable by Pain. Not that it's so easy to find anyone who does. See Eowyn. If it wasn't for the Love of a Good Man...
Elf:
Scarcity. It makes you wonder how there got to be so bleeding many elves to begin with, given that their birth rate must be lower than Swedes.
Height. See description of human females. There's no real difference, except that Elvish women are usually described in terms of some kind of internal glow, aura, or other visible radiation.
Highly Described Hair and Eyes: You think Mary Sues started this? Ha. If Tolkien spent less time on hair and eyes he might be forced to mention less delicate body parts. We're not sure elves even have them.
Fatuous nicknames. Nightingale, Evenstar, whatever, translating them into Elvish doesn't make them less silly.
Even Worse Fate. See Luthien, Feanor's mother, Elrond's basically nameless wife, et cetera. Nothing bad has happened Arwen yet at the end of the books, but we're sure it's just a matter of time.
Interspecies Dating. No explanation is given, beyond that an Elf sees a Man and "her doom comes upon her." This substitutes conveniently for any need to explain how an elf could possibly fall in love at first sight with someone like dirty old Beren or scrawny, grim Aragorn. Even freaky little Bombadil seems to be living with an Elf, although admittedly she is never overtly identified as such.
Not Rocking the Boat. Even Luthien, when rescuing Beren from the Enemy's fortress, uses Pretty Song Magic to do it. Galadriel uses her fey powers of magic and psi behind the scenes, where women belong, never on a battlefield. None of this hacking things with swords business.
Dwarf:
There aren't any. At least, not that Tolkien mentions.
We're not kidding. Go through the books and find me any single mention of a Dwarf woman or any dwarf who is indicated as female. Some scriptwriter made up Gimli's whole "they look just like the men" speech in the movie.
This probably explains why Dwarves are so grim all the time.
NOTE: I have been informed that some remarks similar to Gimli's are made in an Appendix to the books. My feeling is that Appendices are a device of Morgoth, and I will continue to ignore such data as are found in these works of the Enemy.
Hobbit:
We're pretty sure they exist.
Rosie Cotton and That Sackville-Baggins Woman, at least.
Not much else is ever said. Probably because Tolkien was bothered by the whole furry feet thing, once he got it down on paper. More likely because, since he spent so much time going on about how cute and chubby male hobbits were, he would have to write in (gasp) full-figured hobbit women. And this absolutely could not be tolerated.