One also needs to remember the times and the culture back then - and even if this discussion has been made I think a few times already - Tolkien's quite conservative views on many issues.
It is interersting indeed to see how PJ and his team had to artificially build up more central roles for females in the movies just because there was not enough in the books. I mean at the same time many of us (myself included) scorn the films for trying to please mass-audiences with all the horrible twists and turns of a blockbuster-film - the fact that Arwen has a lot larger role than in the books is just another facet of that same idea. So in a sense for example Legolas skating and Arwen substituting Glorfindel are the same thing: adjusting the story to today's requirements?
But coming to feminism the issue looks a lot more complicated I think. The thing we now know as feminism today is something which - even if it follows from the ideas of the utilitarians and the suffragettes of the 19th century - is basically a creation of the existentialists, 1960's, the various post-feminisms of the 80's & 90's etc. So obviously Tolkien couldn't have a contempt towards an idea much more radical he could have even think about...
And another issue that kind of comes to mind is making the difference between what an author hails as truth or goodness - or just the right order of things - in his own world-view, and what the people in the universe the author has created think about those issues. Surely Tolkien was looking at the great mythologies and looking at our history they tend to be "male-centered" stories. But he had also quite extensive knowledge of fex. the Kalevala which brings forward many independent and central female characters (like Galadriel in Tolkien's writings).
So it is a bit more complicated issue I'm afraid. Well, happy to be afraid of that as all simple things are usually quite boring...
