It is true that Tauriel herself is a bit meh. I don't think she has any utility beyond what I've mentioned. Unless you want to count the "cool" factor, but even that is just a Legolas rip off.

Honestly if they really felt the need to break up the massive sausagefest that was the original book (which I don't blame them for), they could have just made a couple of the dwarves female. For all that you barely get any impression of the characters of any of the thirteen who are not Thorin, Balin, Bofur, and the interchangeable Fili and Kili, they still had to basically create them out of whole cloth to have any identity at all; so why not genderswap a couple of them? Hell, instead of Kili being infatuated with the token woman, I think he should've been the token woman.

You can't tell a female dwarf, from a male dwarf... until you remove their skivvy's.

I think i recall seeing a female dwarf or two fleeing erebor, wearing big dresses with their hair up. Couldn't remember if they had beards or not though.

A Real dwarf woman, is just one of the guys.

 

Course, for all we know, dwarf women, are like Hyenas... (even further complicating things!!)

... Having a bite pressure of at least 800 PSI?

Speaking like Whoopi Goldberg?

... Having a bite pressure of at least 800 PSI?

Female Hyena's have a 'penis' and it can be larger, than the males.

(Its not technically a penis, but an external.... well, you know.. and its very hard to tell the difference between the two 'visually'....)