The Tauriel Controversy

http://www.themarysue.com/wish-she-could-be-part-of-your-world-on-tauri stel-hate-and-original-material/
Considering I'm a huge LOTR fan, I'll try to keep this rant to a minimum. I'm sure that lots of you who have been keeping tabs on the internet for stuff concerning The Hobbit (if any of you has, I'm making a bit of an assumption due to its massive popularity in American culture) have come across countless articles on Tauriel, Peter Jackson's original character. Many people were adamantly opposed to this character's insertion into the storyline because she is not canonical to Tolkein's original novel; however, there is much in the films that is not canonical to begin with (orcs being in the Hobbit, for starters, elves arriving at Helm's Deep in The Two Towers, Elrond hating Aragorn, I could go on forever...).  I (and many others) believe that this hatred is not solely due to the insertion, but to the fact that the character inserted is female.  Many fans claimed that "the story doesn't need any female eyecandy" and that Tauriel would just detract from the series as an appeasement to the female fans (the LOTR fan community is, despite its stereotypical masculine appeal, fairly evenly divided from what I have seen) and a shout-out to social justice movements.
Tauriel herself does not feel alien to the series (at least in my opinion) and is what I would call a well-rounded character, especially by pop culture standards.  She can fight as well as the men of the series (which fans who had read Tolkein's works carefully would expect from an elf, regardless of gender) and does not play the damsel in distress; in fact, she actually saves men on many occasions.  Her aggressiveness doesn't seem like an overcompensation (which is especially difficult for female characters to pull off due to gender role bias) and her contemplative and gentler side doesn't come across as "feminine frailty." Overall, I actually enjoyed seeing her in action.  Although Tolkein's works have many strong female characters (Eowyn who killed the Witch King of Angmar, Galadriel the incredibly wise and my personal spirit elf) they do not get much attention, so Tauriel is encouraging for female fans. The actress who portrayed her, Evangeline Lilly, has also stated similar things, and refused to do the "butt pose" female characters perpetually strike on movie posters, making Orlando Bloom do it instead.
The one drawback is that the writers felt that even hints of romance had to be included at all. Tauriel is strong on her own, making romance superfluous, especially since many of the male characters are not romantically involved anywhere in the series (film and book). So maybe one of the issues is not the character herself, but what the writers decided to do with her.