First of all, I think it's really funny that Aule made dwarves because he was super excited about having mortals to teach his shit to even though everyone had agreed that elves were going to be first

He just couldn't wait

But he made them live underground because he wanted to keep them a secret

Then the other Vala found out and he had to put them to sleep until the elves showed up

Also they were like "You have to destroy the Dwarves because we ALL AGREED the first race would be elves"

And he was just like "aw man" and went down there to crush them all with hammers

before Iluvatar had mercy and let him just put them into sleep mode

SECOND and much stupider thought

Canon lore is, apparently, that dwarf women stay at home because they are much rarer than dwarf men, at about a 1:2 ratio

(though they still have beards and are super strong and badass fighters and have all the other dwarf traits)

That's lame

Here's my take

i feel like the more sensible reason people think dwarf women are rarer than dwarf men

is because nobody bothers to tell dwarf women apart from dwarf men

Yeah, agreed.

they just go beard? well must be a man

The first humans who met dwarves were learning about them

but there was a translation error

and the dwarf women are like "rude"

Human: "So where are all your women?"

Dwarves: "Well, the dwarves that raise the children"

Dwarves: "Ah, 'woman' is the human word for kindergarten teacher"

Dwarves: "Obviously they're all staying in the mountain halls with the children"

"They don't go on expeditions to the surface"

Humans: /write all this down

I fucked that up

H: "So where are all your women?"
D: "What is a woman?"
H: "Well, the dwarves that raise the children."

Point is I like the idea better that the dwarves just misunderstood because they don't have any social convention where one biological sex tends to be saddled with childcare

Anywhere here is Aulë, Ainu of crafting and substances, super bummed out about having to kill all his creations

I like that he's depicted wearing jeans

Denim is the most divine of crafting substances, the closest mortals come to godlihood

If any of the ainu wore jeans

It stands to reason the patron of craftsmen would be it

he probably also has a flannel shirt somewhere

The vibe I get is that despite living in a roughly medieval-to-Renaissance-at-most setting Aule is, somehow, a member of a steelworkers union.

tbf, if the part of your species that can bear young is rarer than the part that can give out the genetic material, it makes a bit of sense to keep them a bit safer from a survival standpoint(because if you don't have half of the equation, you're boned). BUT also yeah how do you tell??? EVERYTHING IS BEARDS

Also like, if you are focusing on a population of dwarves that are either in exile as a group or a functioning society within their stronghold there's no reason to assume the women should be hidden away?

like the "dwarf women are kept safe from outside threats" thing only applies when the only dwarves you're dealing with are adventurers or diplomats in non-dwarf lands who have a secure homeland to retreat to.

...which is to say, I think there's a strong case to be made for casting three or four of Thorin's company as women and giving them the same elaborate beards as the rest. And then just never addressing it.

I've seen a variant on the "misdefiniton of woman" bit where dwarves assume that "woman" means "someone who is currently pregnant"

and of course pregnant dwarves stay home to rest