I started to say that I thought that Tolkien's vision *probably* didn't encompass female elf fighters, but that I thought it could be an acceptable extension of myth. One tends to think of him, operating in that very male Oxford environment, writing books where most of the protagonists are male...

But then thinking about that a bit, I disagreed with myself violently - Eowyn, Aredhel and above all Luthien - this is not a writer who expects women to enjoy sitting about at home waiting for pillaging orcs...

And after all, how many sylvan elves of the lower classes do we ever meet in detail? Half of them are just described as 'elves' which could be male or female... Hmm.