Why are female 🧌orcs never mentioned?

Kiredor said:

Why is it, that female orcs are never mentioned? Surely, there must have been some sort of fathering and birthing of baby orcs along the way.

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Eljorahir said:

My opinion is that female orcs and baby orcs would humanize them too much, and this is why they were never mentioned. Within the stories, the orcs are irredeemable and the (implied) goal of the "good peoples" of Middle-earth is the total extermination of the orcs and Tolkien never gives us any indication we should feel bad about that. It certainly simplifies things. (It's a good thing we're in the "fantasy" genre, because this idea would be quite horrendous in the real world.)

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Eljorahir said:

My opinion is that female orcs and baby orcs would humanize them too much, and this is why they were never mentioned. Within the stories, the orcs are irredeemable and the (implied) goal of the "good peoples" of Middle-earth is the total extermination of the orcs and Tolkien never gives us any indication we should feel bad about that. It certainly simplifies things. (It's a good thing we're in the "fantasy" genre, because this idea would be quite horrendous in the real world.)

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Ugluk said:

I don't think so. We don't encounter any women amongst the Dunlanders, Southrons, Haradrim, or Corsairs either, and there is no suggestion that they should be exterminated.

It's not clear if Orcs are, of themselves, truly sentient or had any moral sense at all. Tolkien thought much over this in later life, but could not come to any clear conclusion.

It would appear from Tolkien that they reproduced sexually but that all we see are the male warriors Sometimes Tolkien uses insectile language to describe aspects of their behaviour, with imagery of flies or ant or termite colonies. They possibly could be eusocial, like naked mole rats (and ants and termites). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naked_mole-rat. A breeding pair at the heart of the colony, and non reproducing workers. In the case of orcs, perhaps the warriors were all male and the females took care of the colony. This is both consistent with Tolkien and makes sense biologically. Tolkien of course knew nothing about the eusociality of mole rats, only discovered in 1981.

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Kiredor said:

It has been also pointed out that Tolkien mentioned the orcs in the Silmarillion on this very subject. Seemingly, they multiply in the same way as illuvatar’s children (Elves and men).
Nice info on the mole rats as well. Thanks.

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Ugluk said:

I suppose it's open to interpretation, I always took it to mean more or less mammalian. However it would be taken to mean much greater similarity. In which case the the females could still be servile and underground. I doubt that orc society (such as it was) would rank high on equity! Note that "society" does not imply sentience or moral accountability, only a pattern of behaviour between individuals. Wolves and lions are social in this sense.I suspect this is what Tolkien had in mind. Interestingly, some social animal species, both birds and mammals show patterns of learned behaviour that vary over space, indicative of culture. This would parallel the regional dialects of orc speech that Tolkien alluded to.

Another mammalian alternative to mole rats could be that they resembled hyenas. Males lactate and female genitalia closely resemble that of males. Again, Tolkien would not have been aware of this.

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Ugluk said:

I suppose it's open to interpretation, I always took it to mean more or less mammalian. However it would be taken to mean much greater similarity. In which case the the females could still be servile and underground.

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The Enting said:

even the "Christian" Crusades, whose sole role was to impose the Religion of Opinion on all.

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