#there aint nothing more jewish than longing for your homeland

[actuallywlccan]

Considering there are about half as many female dwarves as male ones and it's considered normal for most dwarves not to marry or have kids (including the female dwarves), the idea that gender would be a strict binary for them is pretty unlikely. While there do seem to be different norms for female dwarves (they're usually kept hidden in the dwarven homeland and are not included in many written records, even of genealogies), many gender differences don't seem to extend once dwarves actually do leave the mountains, since, when in non-dwarven spaces, female dwarves dress as and are mistaken for males by most non-dwarves to the point that it's a common misconception that there are no female dwarves at all.

And ok, it sounds familiar in a bad way that female dwarves aren't included in written records, but it's possible that this occurs because dwarves have private names that are only spoken between one another and public names which are used with non-dwarves. These names are so private that Tolkien only ever wrote a couple dwarven names in their original Khuzdul, so we don't know any major dwarf character's real name. They aren't even written on tombs (Durin's grave says Durin, which is his public name) so it's totally possible that female dwarves leave the dwarven homes so little that their public names aren't really a part of their identity, and are not used, even in genealogies, even tho they are seen as just as important as male dwarves within non-written culture. Half of those giant statues of famous dwarves could be female and us non-dwarves probably wouldn't realize it.

The name thing is a bit of a tangent, but my main point is that it's very possible (and in fact, highly likely) that tolkien's dwarves have a completely different concept of gender than other races in middle earth and definitely from western culture on real earth. It's possible that they only consider gender A Thing within their homes and outside of their homes they are all just Dwarves. Like a female dwarf could leave her home for one reason or another and live her life around humans/hobbits/elves the exact same way a male dwarf would with everyone she encounters believing her to be male. And she would likely never say anything bc she is already an outsider with a totally different culture which clearly prioritizes privacy and tradition over assimilation. OR maybe the dwarves have different genders depending on whether or not they get married/have kids/etc, so there could be 3 or 4 genders if not more. OR maybe there's three major genders of equal population, but two of the three are associated with male bodies. OR maybe that name thing wasn't just a tangent and gender is associated with whether you have a public name or not and whether you leave the mountains. OR maybe different Dwarven settlements have totally different ideas of gender.

Dwarven culture is hidden, even from the readers, way more than that of men, hobbits, and elves, so there's a ton of room to speculate and headcanon about dwarves, which can be really fun. The one thing that is not at all debatable is that dwarves do not have the same concept of gender that non-dwarves have, since things like feminine beards and normalized crossdressing (but is it really crossdressing in their culture or does it just seem like crossdressing to us) are clearly not a part of any other middle earth race's cultural practice. Remember, it is expected of female dwarves to present the same way as males outside of the homeland and it's not totally clear if they're actually trying to pretend to be male or if there's just a certain way dwarves present when outside of the home and we only think it relates to gender bc female dwarves are rarer and more protected so they don't leave as much, so we associate leaving the home with males, which we assume are all one gender which they may not be, and basically I LOVE IT.

Second tangent, but I fell in love with the dwarves because I wrote a 30 page paper in my freshman year of college abt how they're based on Jews (Tolkien said it himself so don't @ me) and as a real world Jew I feel a lot of kinship with these middle-earth jews (dwarves) and one of the things we have in common is that we both have a private culture and a public culture, and gender presentation is one part of our culture that is always Different, even in public. What I mean is, Jews and Dwarves both (usually and historically) use the language of whatever land they are in. So Turkish Jews speak Turkish, Spanish Jews speak Spanish, Russian Jews speak Russian, and Dwarves speak Westron (common speech portrayed as English) and occasionally Elvish. But we also have private languages (and names) which we use with one another, such as Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino, etc. and dwarven Khuzdul. But in both the public and private culture of both Dwarves and Jews gender is one thing that we're just Not Normal about. I'm not at all an expert in Jewish gender practices, but Jewish masculinity is a Thing and has been historically different from goyische masculinity, at least in Western culture, and that difference has been used to discriminate against Jews A LOT, but is also something that has allowed us to see the world differently and is just, like, fine? like it's actually cool that our masculinity is different and yeah there's still sexism within our culture but gender is just one way Jews do our own thing, just like how we have our own languages and foods. (also please keep in mind these are generalizations and based in my own experience and research, which means it is Ashkenazi-centric).

All this to say that one of the things that makes Tolkien's Dwarves and Jews alike is that even in our public-facing culture, we don't do gender in the way that goyim/non-dwarves expect us to, which can lead to some harmful stereotypes (yes, dwarves are discriminated against) but also reminds us that gender is something we as people and communities create and are able to shape and make into what works best for us--AND THAT GOES FOR DWARVES TOO

CONCEPT: After being repeatedly misgendered by the dwarves you're traveling with, YOU (a human) summon the courage to explain that you're actually nonbinary. When they give you a blank stare, you start going into detail about what that means, what pronouns you prefer, how that all works. The dwarves are like "OH no, okay, we have that. Khuzdul doesn't actually have gendered pronouns at all and our genders are too plentiful and complicated to explain to outsiders. We communicate most of them through hair and beard styling. Yeah. I'm not a man. Right. Neither is he. Exactly. We just let humans gender us however because it's not like they're going to Get It anyway. No. Well you might! Ha! Probably not though. Let's get another ale."

[ruffboijuliaburnsides]

#whyd i write this #bc i love the dwarves so much #and yes my love for dwarves is partially based in how I feel a sense of kinship with them bc they're based on Jews #because while the dwarves are definitely not the perfect representation of Jews in fantasy they're fucking PEOPLE #with a rich and respected and noble culture who are the GOOD GUYS #and in that paper i mentioned I also talked about jkr's goblins and roald dahl's witches and both are just SO BAD #like truly awful #that even a mixed bag rep like dwarves feels amazing #also bc it's not just “big nose like gold” that makes them jews but real and important shared charicteristics #like khuzdul being based on hebrew #and the fact that “the hobbit” is all about their desire to return to their homeland #there aint nothing more jewish than longing for your homeland #except maybe the relationship they have with their creator god which is Very Jewish

CONCEPT: After being repeatedly misgendered by the dwarves you're traveling with, YOU (a human) summon the courage to explain that you're actually nonbinary. When they give you a blank stare, you start going into detail about what that means, what pronouns you prefer, how that all works. The dwarves are like "OH no, okay, we have that. Khuzdul doesn't actually have gendered pronouns at all and our genders are too plentiful and complicated to explain to outsiders. We communicate most of them through hair and beard styling. Yeah. I'm not a man. Right. Neither is he. Exactly. We just let humans gender us however because it's not like they're going to Get It anyway. No. Well you might! Ha! Probably not though. Let's get another ale."