[Lalaith]

Finwe, would you say that Eowyn would have agreed with what you are saying about the home-nuturing role of the female? I don't think so...the whole point was that she *didn't* want to leave "the fighting and mucking about" to the menfolk.
I don't use the word sexism very much, myself. It is bandied around so much now, particularly by people saying "I'm not a sexist but..." that I think it has lost meaning.
I have no problem, however, with Tolkien's depiction of women. Some of his female characters are idealised, sure, but then so are many of his male characters. There are plenty of interesting, flawed and complex female personalities in Middle Earth - Morwen, Erendis, Aredhel and even Galadriel as she is depicted in the Silmarillion, UT and so on. (She is a much more idealised figure in LotR, I think.)
And it's important to remember that the early and mediaeval literature which inspired Tolkien was not nearly as hidebound and rigid regarding gender roles as some of you seem to think. The heroic poetry and sagas of Germanic culture feature a plethora of strong female characters: some good, some evil, some in-between.
What both Tolkien and those early writers realised was that literature that merely depicted everyone following traditional social roles and doing exactly what was expected of them would be very boring literature indeed.