Why their were no women in the fellowship

[Mithalwen]

Originally Posted by The Saucepan Man

Oh I don't know. A female member of the Fellowship would have been very useful when it came to cooking and washing travel-stained clothes. They would have been well advised to keep the map away from her, though.

*Ducks flying rolling-pins and assorted culinary equipment*

Culinary equipment? Many of us long ago gave up believing that the quickest route to a man's heart is through his stomach - straight through the ribs with a very sharp knife (and I am thinking of daggers rather than Sabatiers)is much more direct. Maybe the attraction of Aragorn for Arwen was the fact that here clearly is a man who would be undemanding in the housework department - largely because he lived in a hedge for preference. Possibly nature compensated Elves for their powerful senses of sight and hearing by leaving them seriously deficient in the olofactory department.

As for those of my own gender who claim that women didn't go on the quest because they menstruate - well you clearly didn't have the same variety of PE teachers as I did. Those slightly butch hags would insist that lots of fresh air and exercise were just the thing ... ok so my own approach favours hotwater bottles, and ibuprofen and alcohol - but it is a bit of a wimp-out. Just tough it out - I bet Eowyn wouldn't have not joined the ride of the Rohirrim because it was a bad time of the month. Anyway I am sure that elf women don't get cramps - I mean they wouldn't would they? They would be like the happy, smiley females in Tampax commercials - not as normal women who are more interested in finding someone whose throat they can rip out, than skateboarding.

But the real reason there were no women is because they would have got fed up with the typically male procedure for organising the quest (cf Judith in "The Life of Brian who so unreasonably wants them to do something about Brian immediately - since he is being crucified NOW- without all the committee meetings, discussions, resolutions and planning). They would have taken about 5 minutes to realise the only and obvious course of action, packed, arranged for someone to feed the cats, and gone. None of that two months of recce and faffing around and waiting for winter to get really nasty and making a couple of bods half way there in advance - female logic would have sent Frodo as excess baggage with Elladan and Elrohir...since they were going that way.....