Part One of a longer response on beards (to d4rk3lf who didn't ask for a longer response, along with nobody else)
In my opinion, "
Gimli's" description in Appendix A is about far more than beards: it's about Dwarf-women being
indistinguishable from Dwarven-men in the eyes of
other races -- except for clothing --
but even this concerns when the female
Dwarves are not normally seen by other folk,
Also, and not to get pedantic but (pedantic alert), I'm not sure we certainly know what it is about Dwarf-clothing that distinguishes a female
dwarf from a male dwarf, despite that one may jump to conclusions based upon how other folk dress.
Anyway, as noted but not fully quoted, the idea that Dwarf-women cannot be told apart from Dwarf-men (again, given the author-published exception) is also supported in the posthumously published Silmarillion texts: there it's said that Dwarven womankind cannot be discerned by those of other
race: not in feature, not in gait, not in voice,
"nor in any wise save this" -- and
here the "this" is that the woman go not to war, and seldom leave their deep bowers and
halls.
Tolkien even went so far as to muse that
because Aule had only made males, Eru would not amend that work [except the obvious refashioning, I must assume, referring to that which would not be obvious to other races, given clothes]
Also, I note that Jackson's Film-Gimli says that Dwarf-women are so alike in voice and appearance that they are
"often mistaken" for Dwarf-men.
In Appendix A, Tolkien's Gimli writes:
"They are in voice and appearance, and in garb if they must go on a journey, so like to the dwarf-men that the eyes and ears of other peoples cannot tell them apart."
Well, if I (not being a Tolkienian Dwarf) can't tell male and female Dwarves apart by voice or
appearance, then I guess I would very likely make a "mistake" -- but an entirely expected one,
in any case.
Part Three
[part two was never written due to post-length considerations]
An unasked for aside on GLWB (
Gandalf's Long White Beard -- although if I had just written that out in the first place, I could have saved time and space here): is Jackson's Gandalf's
The Hobbit's beard spot on?
According to the text, Gandalf's long "white" beard is supposed to have
"hung down below his waist."
And no way I'm watching any film that doesn't have:
1) a Gandalfian beard clearly beyond this wizard's waist
B) or -- an unusually high-waisted actor playing Gandalf
Part Four
Aside for another thread: did Tolkien's Gandalf's beard include hair above the lips?