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I really don’t see Tolkein as minimizing the role of women in his book. Arwen + Aragorn, the idea that an immortal woman would give herself so fully to a man that she would cede her immortality to marry him.

Eowyn, and her desire to fight on the battlefield, that she would not be left to defend the home, to the point where she KILLS the Witchking of Angmar, the most powerful of the Ringwraiths.

Galadriel, the most powerful of all the Elven Queens, who passes up on the ring when Frodo offers it to her freely.

The women all play pivotal roles in his book.

That’s pretty good for 1945.

Pretty good for any time. He wrote women that were characters not caricatures.

Gladriel is one of the best characters. She redeemed herself by not taking the ring. She was of the Noldor elves that betrayed the Valar and were cast out in exile into Middle Earth, moreover she was one of those abandoned by Faenor to make their way over the crushing ice.

Her song, asking “what ship will bear me now” is the lament of a fallen Angel, mourning for the Heaven she had renounced. She was borne back across that wider sea!

I sang of leaves, of leaves of gold, and leaves of gold there grew:
Of wind I sang, a wind there came and in the branches blew.
Beyond the Sun, beyond the Moon, the foam was on the Sea,
And by the strand of Ilmarin there grew a golden Tree.
Beneath the stars of Ever-eve in Eldamar it shone,
In Eldamar beside the walls of Elven Tirion.
There long the golden leaves have grown upon the branching years,
While here beyond the Sundering Seas now fall the Elven-tears.
O Lórien! The Winter comes, the bare and leafless Day;
The leaves are falling in the stream, the River flows away.
O Lórien! Too long I have dwelt upon this Hither Shore
And in a fading crown have twined the golden elanor.
But if of ships I now should sing, what ship would come to me,
What ship would bear me ever back across so wide a Sea?

I recall the words of Liv Tyler, who, when catching wind of the fan uproar over having Arwen at the battle of HelmsDeep, told Peter Jackson “You don't need to put a sword in Arwen’s hands to make her strong!”.

You will notice the leftover elves at the battle, but they cut her out of the scene.

And she was definitely one of the strongest characters, who willingly, and for love; forsook her immortality and parted with her entire family, a parting that would endure past the ending of the world.