We had a really great discussion here a while back about how to write an empowered feminine character who isn't just a man in a dress.
Could you post a pointer to this previous thread? It's of particular interest to me because I'm mid-way through writing My First Novel (tm) and my main POV character is a young woman. I wouldn't say that the writing is any more difficult than when I write a male lead (writing is
always difficult for me), but I am a little less sure, a little more aware that here be things that I may just be flat out wrong about. The story required a young woman, though, so that's what I'm writing.
I can say that what I'm doing is writing a sparser first draft than I otherwise might, keeping the character focused on her goals. Then I intend to solicit comments from my female friends about how believable my character is as a woman and things I could do to make her more-so (in the sense of perspectives, reactions and areas of concern, not "more scenes where she's applying lipstick"), without alienating a male audience in the process. That to me is the key question: how can a writer best write a major POV character, make that character's gender matter, and yet not alienate the other gender?
I think a lot ultimately depends on the author's self-awareness, which leads into an awareness of others and overall imaginative faculties. There are a lot of female writers who I think can't (or don't) write women, just Mary Sues, and male writers who can't or don't write believable men -- gender by itself guarantees nothing. As far as my character goes, I am making sure she is "empowered" in the sense that she has real choices about her future, with relatively few financial, social, etc. constraints. As you say, activities and skills are hardly ever gender-specific...the few that are mostly involve childbirth and rearing. While some men are just threatened by "empowered" women, I do also think some feminists have helped create or at least support the "pretending to be a man" concept by equating "empowerment" with "empowered to choose traditionally male roles," rather than the broader, "empowered to choose whatever role they want."
Re: Lord of the Rings, I don't know, All Hallows E, if you're familiar with Neil Gaiman's concept that there are male and female stories, as well as characters (which would be another interesting topic for discussion), but one of the interesting things about LotR is that I think there's a very "male" story in the foreground overlaying a very "female" story in the background that peeks through every now and then. I think that's part of why it has such cross-gender appeal.
I did wonder, though, whether Merry (who was male but not a man) or one of the Dead Men wouldn't also have been able to take out that Nazgul...
MattD
