[greyhavener]

Child writes: "I very strongly agree (and always have) that women in LotR consistently represent home, stability, peace, and wonderful things like that, and that their role in the story is to preserve such things."

I think this is quite true. LotR is told from a male perspective. All members of the fellowship were male. Women are presented as men see them, fulfilling roles many men believe they need them to fulfill. But I don't mind.

Tolkien was writing an epic, a myth. His depiction of women is pretty consistent with his purpose.

I also think Tolkien himself had fairly traditional views about roles women play in society. He was willing to entertain a departure in Eowyn, but stuck with healer, helper, encourager among most of his women characters. Luthien and Galadriel, while they were revered and held leadership roles, seemed to maintain a feminity consistent with a man's image of what feminity means. Even in his assignment of roles for the Valar there seems to be a "traditional" division of labor.

Perhaps someone should do for Middle Earth what the "Mists of Avalon" did for the Arthurian Legend...write it from the woman characters' perspective.