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[ChairmanPoo]

It was Tolkien. He told that to CS Lewis.

Supposedly it was meant as a joke.

[Lord Shonus]

Until the Peter Jackson movie of The Two Towers, nothing Tolkien related mentioned bearded dwarf women.

[Vester]

Quoth Aragorn: "It's the beards."

Actually, he barely mentioned dwarven women at all, not even in Mim's halls in the Silmarillion.

I tend to think that Tolkien's dwarves are strongly patriarchal.

Maybe a ripoff artist later author like Terry Goodkind brought in the bearded dwarf women thing.

EDIT: Gah, it's Terry BROOKS, not Terry Goodkind. My copy of SoS was in the bookshelf right next to me and yet I couldn't be bothered to check. Lazy Vester! 

[Sphalerite]

Until the Peter Jackson movie of The Two Towers, nothing Tolkien related mentioned bearded dwarf women.

Tolkein barely mentioned women in the books at all.  They had to do a lot of re-writing for the movies to give Arwen actual speaking lines.

[Grendus]

The first Sword of Shannara book posits that dwarves are a stunted offshoot of humanity, short because they adapted to living underground. (I had to put the book down after the Gandalf ripoff gives the main character the deus ex machina balls Elfstones, it was just unreadable)

So if that's your theory of dwarven evolution, then maybe dwarven women don't have beards.

But if your theory is that they are similar, but not completely related to humans and elves (the horror!) then there's no reason for the women not to have beards.

As I recall, Terry Brooks world was more of a post-apocalyptic fantasy world, where after a devastating world war humans were spread out so much that evolution split them into humans, dwarves, elves, and a few other races. Also, Brooks magic was caused by large scale belief - that is, it worked because the people were superstitious enough to believe it would work. The Sword of Shannara books aren't really mainstream fantasy.

I like Toady's solution, personally. I think female dwarf beards are weird, but that's just me.

[Fieari]

I want female dwarven beards because my ideal dwarf is a Terry Pratchett dwarf, where it's used for actual narrative purpose.  His dwarves are definitely my favorite, not least because they have the most developed culture I've ever seen for dwarves, while still being recognizably stereotypical.

For the record, Terry Pratchett partially uses female dwarves for an interesting perspective on the feminist movement (amongst other things).  Traditional female dwarves act exactly like men (the stereotype of what human feminists want to do), while dwarven feminists want to wear lipstick and high heels and such.  It displays an amusing social commentary.

[ChairmanPoo]

Until the Peter Jackson movie of The Two Towers, nothing Tolkien related mentioned bearded dwarf women.

sure he did.

http://tolkien.slimy.com/faq/Creatures.html#DwarfBeards

Not that this is relevant in any way. Frankly, I dont particularily like the notion, but Tolkien did write about that. It's rather pointless as far as his story is concerned, though. In fact, I think that a good deal of the races in his book dont appear in their XX version durng the story

[Areyar]

I'm confused on the amount of attention to cheekbones, teeth and eyecolour, compared to the total lack of attention to other interesting bodyparts.
It may be a cultural thing, but the second thing I notice about a human woman, generally, is their bustsize, not the colour and size of their teeth.
Are sexual references pointedly ignored in the Disney tradition? A concept I find hard to reconcile with the lack of PC-ness of other bay12 games.
Or are dwarves secretly an asexual species of lizards or Prattchetesque trolls? The babies in the most used graphics sets already look like eggs.
Some more info on bodyparts seperate from the face may be nice. Ie Lombom has a solid build and has exceptionally big hands, she feels her mamaries are too large and her eyes too square. She is proud of her hairy chin and muscular legs.
But it may become excessive if every bodypart canhas a description.

sorry. ranting about a non-issue.

[Sensei]

Dwarven Women, deleted scene from the Lord of the Rings movie.

Normally I'd no sooner cite Tolkein as an authority on Dwarf Fortress than I might walk up to a samurai and say "Oh look, it's a ninja!" really loud so that he can hear me, but I had to link that as it EXACTLY describes the situation on these forums.

And no, I don't think that part was in the book.

[Areyar]

Actually I remember seeing that scene. Maybe it's deleted only in certain regions of the world...or I've seen the uncut edition too often.

[Vester]

I'm confused on the amount of attention to cheekbones, teeth and eyecolour, compared to the total lack of attention to other interesting bodyparts.
It may be a cultural thing, but the second thing I notice about a human woman, generally, is their bustsize, not the colour and size of their teeth.
Are sexual references pointedly ignored in the Disney tradition? A concept I find hard to reconcile with the lack of PC-ness of other bay12 games.
Or are dwarves secretly an asexual species of lizards or Prattchetesque trolls? The babies in the most used graphics sets already look like eggs.
Some more info on bodyparts seperate from the face may be nice. Ie Lombom has a solid build and has exceptionally big hands, she feels her mamaries are too large and her eyes too square. She is proud of her hairy chin and muscular legs.
But it may become excessive if every bodypart canhas a description.

sorry. ranting about a non-issue.

I think it's because guys don't find dwarven women attractive.

[Cruxador]

Well,  guess this suggestion was uneeded, and I'm just ignorant. Out of curiosity, where was the answer to my problem originally posted? It's not in any of the places I usually check so far as I can discern.
Now that that's out of the way though, thus has become a general discussion, and should probably be moved there if a mod feels so inclined.

I think it's because guys don't find dwarven women attractive.

Some do.

[Bricks]

I think the most unique notion (which has already been suggested) is that dwarf women DO grow beards, but keep them shaved for various cultural reasons, i.e.:

-In imitation of humans or other humanoid species.  If interaction between humans, elves, goblins, etc. is advanced enough that they are actively trading and occasionally traveling together, its very believable that cultural bleeding would occur.

-In a related sense, as a specific caste; a way of distinguishing sex, heritage, employment, or social rank.  This is a more adaptable system, and could lead to some interesting conflict within dwarfish society.  Humans have fought wars over lesser things.

-As an analogue to humans' sexual dimorphism.  Again, like someone else pointed out, beards may be a symbol of male sexual status.  A lack of beard, however, may be the more distinguishing and provocative feature.  Another thing to consider is how human women have, over time, become more childlike in their features as adults (consider how the domestication of wolves has lead to dogs with more puppylike features).  I'm not sure if Toady has children growing beards or not, but it is something to consider.

[Rowanas]

I thought I posted this, but apparently not.

Dwarven women should have moustaches. Old, hairy human women get moustaches, so the hairier dwarves should also have moustaches at the very least. Nothing more (I've never seen a granny with a beard), nothing less.

[Sutremaine]

-In imitation of humans or other humanoid species.  If interaction between humans, elves, goblins, etc. is advanced enough that they are actively trading and occasionally traveling together, its very believable that cultural bleeding would occur.

I'd like to see human women wearing beard plates and have it be as unremarked upon (in-universe and out) as dwarf women not having beards. Also dwarf men without beards in areas where the human norm is a clean shave.