Gender Roles in the Lord of the Rings

The Lord of the Rings trilogies portrayal of females strongly reflects the patriarchal culture that dominates our society, depicting women as delicate and dependent on males while painting men as strong and powerful. In all three movies, there are only a few female characters, and even fewer that actually contribute to the conflicts that the male protagonists face. The female character Eowyn’s role throughout the movie serves as an effective illustration for this point. Beyond dismissing females to only be sidekicks to men, the film has other overarching thematic elements that construct gender in ways very similar to american culture. The world of the Lord of the Rings strongly parallels our own society and can be utilized to express the dramatic inequality women face.

Eowyn’s character in the series strongly embodies the stereotypes of women that are so common in our society. Throughout the trilogy her value as a fighter or soldier is discredited. Instead, her value is strictly contingent on her ability to get a man. Eowyn is first introduced in the story as a women desperate for the love and attention of the male protagonist Aragon. After Aragon rejects her, Eowyn’s character in the novel feels defeated and is depicted as a failure. Eowyn does eventually achieve traditional female success at the end of the story when she does in fact find a man to marry. This concept of women's success being entirely based on their ability to obtain a husband places them subordinate to men and substantially contributes to the patriarchal structure of society.

Consistent throughout the world of the Lord of the Rings as well as most all of fictional and also factual literature, is the theme of women being inadequate soldiers. Finding a women on the battlefield in human works of culture is a seldom occurrence, that is because men’s dominance in the role as warriors leave women excluded from scenes of war. Women are instead assigned to the realm of domesticity, being given roles like raising children and tending to the home. This concept of warriors being exclusively men is consistently expressed in the Lord of the Rings. Through out the duration of the trilogy, one finds a women engaging in battle only once and only when she is in disguise as a man. This total lack of authentic female warriors reveals much about the patriarchal society of middle earth.

Excluding women from warfare carries much larger implications for the society as a whole. That exclusion robs women of political power, thus relegating them to be complacent objects that don't create their own power but instead gain success from finding a powerful man. The premise of men being better soldiers acts as much of the foundation for the patriarchal society of the Lord of the Rings. Even though men being better soldiers does seem biologically factual, the implications of that idea creates large and systemic inequality for women. Since this premise was also historically present in human society, the gender roles in the Lord of the Rings series reveals some of the origins of gender inequality for us.