Does the New Testament contain sexism?

[HopOnPop]

Granted it's a mixed bag, the overall sentiment in the Christian scriptures (such as Gal. 3:28 or the Golden Rule and what not) set the bar very high--some say too high. My problem are the many instances within the texts themselves that fail to live up to that bar, and the billions of people who've come along afterward thinking that every idea contained within ought to be wholly embraced as the pinnacle of a rational morality.

Excellent clarification to add on. It matters not how perfect a fruit may be, if no one can pick it.

And worse than those, as you say, "that come along afterward thinking that every idea contained within ought to be wholly embraced as the pinnacle of a rational morality", are the many that choose to simply interpret scripture in alternative ways to fit their own ulterior motives, thus allowing once ethical words to entirely lose their higher meaning altogether. For example, you may site Gal 3:28 as an example of high ethical Christian standards, but I have little doubt that many Christian racists who can read this same verse, in all earnestness, and still walk away with an understanding very different from what you and I see printed in those same words. Borrowing from an excellent note you made in your OP re: sexism, a devout Bible thumping Christian, who happened to also be racist, could easily read Gal 3:28 as a purely ontological distinction and completely ignore its application in the real world, could they not?

And this phemenon goes the other way too. There still others who see verses which you mention "don't live up to" a high standard of ethics, yet in the hands of many Christians, they become exhaulted virtues to them. I don't know how many times I have had a Christian proudly hold up Heb 11:1 or Luke 17:5 as examples of high ethical conduct, unaware at just how utterly immoral these passages really are.

Or -- to bring us back around to your OP topic -- the overwhelming dirth of sexist apologetics that dismiss things that we see as plainly sexist but have no problem with assuaging sexism with the seemingly nonsensical notion (again to borrow a gem from your OP) of "different but equal" and exaulting this new understanding as some form of a grand social tenet like complimentarianism, which is based on such utter horse shit. Its only when young minds are infected by such rationalizations like this crap, that even allow humanity to end up with decisions, such as Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), just to throw out one direct example that very likely came out of this kind of theology.

///stepping down off high-horse now. Thank you for your time.
...but isn't baby Jesus so damned cute?