Where are all the WOMEN at?! (Why Justin Trudeau's Cabinet isn't Enough)

Today we talk about the Tolkienverse,

Namely this study called

THE LOTR PROJECT

It is a statistical analysis of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings series as broken down into numbers and figures.
Their tagline

Middle-Earth in Numbers

And what you get from their initial analysis is essentially this chart

(Mmm. Sexy, sexy statistics.)

But, what does it all mean?

Well, if you follow the link you can see for yourself, but for those who don't want to squint real hard the numbers come out to be this:

For every named/known character in the Tolkien verse, they were ascribed a race and a gender. 

We are dealing primarily with binaries, but Tolkien saw things pretty black and white anyway, so we won't complain about the spectrum just yet. 

The pure numbers are from most diverse to least:

1. Hobbits with 74 female, 174 male =30% female
2. Elves with 20 female, 78 male=20% female
3. Humans with 62 female, 410 male=13% female
4. Dwarves with 1 female, 50 male=2% female
5. Orcs with 0 female, 20 male=0% female

This is one of the most widely read, published, and enjoyed stories of all time. 

The best resource I found was an NPR survey chronicling the most favorite Fantasy series of all time. 

Guess what trumped the charts?

You guessed it.

It has just become hopelessly ubiquitous.

Like Citizen Kane being the greatest movie ever.

Eventually, just to get it out of the way you kind of have to put it into its own special category just so people can talk about something more productive.

"I really LOVE Lord of the Rings/Citzen Kane!"

Wow.
What a polarizing opinion.
Let's move on shall we?

The point is, it is universally recognized as a work of brilliance.
But, those numbers are pretty frightening.
For a universally beloved tale, only the barest fraction of the characters can be identified as female.
If it were to reflect our reality at all, the proportions should come out to be roughly even, at least insofar as the human characters go.
In fact, women should make up the majority of the population
Roughly 50.9% according to the last census (in the United States) 

Why is any of this at all significant?
What does it have to do with anything?
Well, it is important to recognize that an entire story, perhaps the most talked about, the biggest cultural event until Game of Thrones was predominately told from the perspective and involved almost exclusively male perspective.
Quick run down of The Fellowship of the Ring.
Our protagonist Frodo Baggins.

Is given a ring by his uncle Bilbo

Guarded by his trusted friend Samwise Gamgee

Pippin

and Merry

and the wizard Gandalf.

Led by Aragorn son of Arathorn

His brother in arms Boromir (brother Faramir, son of Denethor).

The elf Legolas.

And the dwarf Gimli.

Wow.
What a remarkably diverse ethnic group.
No word of a joke, even though they cast everyone from a pool of white actors, these characters represent five of the nine(?) (don't quote me) sentient races of Middle Earth.
Humans, elves, dwarves, hobbits, and wizards all working together.
But, not a single one of them a lady.
(P.S. if you want to know my thoughts on casting of white actors, read my previous blog post about Race & Copyright).

Now, these are just the major players, the ones who kick off the story and the ones that we follow throughout.
But, these are the MAJOR PLAYERS THAT WE FOLLOW THROUGHOUT THE STORY.
There is not a single one of them that is female.
And only a single female character ends up positively impacting the story:

Eowyn.
For those who haven't read/seen Lord of the Rings, I give you the most memorable scene from anywhere:

WHAT A CERTIFIABLE BADASS!
The whole entire story could have been about Eowyn and it would have been incredible.
But, ultimately, the saddest part about Eowyn is that she has to fight this idea of being a woman in wartime.
It is probably the thesis of Tolkien's whole book.
You cannot be a woman in wartime.
The majority of his narrative supports this claim.

1. There are no female characters in LoTR besides Eowyn
2. None besides Eowyn impacts the story in any meaningful way

So what are we left with?

This beautiful little scene where Eowyn overcomes the adversity of being a woman.
She gets to say, "I am no man!" and it is a good thing!

But, I am left with a sour taste in my mouth.
And I think it comes from Suzan Lori Parks.

Suzan Lori Parks is a playwright, a brilliant one.

An American playwright who writes about what she calls black drama. 

"The bulk of relationships Black people are engaged in onstage is the relationship between the Black and the White other....The use of the White in the dramatic equation is, I think, too often seen as the only way of exploring our Blackness; this equation reduces Blackness to merely a state of "non-Whiteness.""

-An Equation for Black People Onstage 

To put it at its most simple:

"The Klan does not always have to be outside the door for Black people to have lives worthy of dramatic literature." 

-Ibid

So we have this equation in most drama involving Black people
Black=non-White
But, she contends that is incorrect and Black people can have lives worthy of dramatic literature independent of or in concert with White people without them necessarily being adversaries.

I want to extend this to the gender relationships we find in Lord of the Rings and narratives like it.
Female=non-Male
That is an incorrect equality.
Female is not the same as male.

To bring it back around we have this lovely little moment thanks to Canada's Prime Minister Justin Trudeau:

On being asked why a gender equal cabinet was so important to the Prime Minister he responded:
"Because it's 2015"
I dig that!
I loved that!

Especially when I consider things like we are creeping closer to gender equality in places like the Supreme Court!

But, then my attention was drawn to this Tolkienverse study.
And things like this:

Someone very precious to me said,

"There will never be enough women on the Supreme Court because the Supreme Court will never be all women as it has been all men."

And I realized that equality no longer means what we think it does.
It isn't half and half.

If you look at the positions held of office over time instead of just the right here, right now:

• It doesn't matter that Barack Obama is the sitting president.
• It doesn't matter that Hillary Clinton gets elected into office.

We would need 44 consecutive female presidents for it to be considered "equal".
We would need 43 consecutive black presidents for it to be considered "equal".
And that will never happen.

At least not yet.

So I am writing a fantasy series in similar style to Lord of the Rings.
But, every single person in the story, everyone who positively affects the narrative will identify as female.
I already have the rough sketches in place.
The working title is called The Void.
If anyone is interested in reading the rough drafts/notes, I will happily begin sharing them with anybody who asks.

• The main character is an inventor called Mel, her mother and grandmother fight to protect her from religious cults that want to end her life.
• The story is less an epic quest and more like Dorothy in Oz where she has to make friends and political alliances with the different races/species she encounters
• The world is at war with itself, Ragnarok is coming and only by working together can the universe survive.
• Every race is out for itself, but Mel brings them together to form a united front against the end of the world through leadership, heart, and strategy
• Think neo-steam punk in a fantasy universe powered primarily by magic (she can't use none though, so she has to make her own abilities kind of like Batman in JLA)