Is the bible any better? A comprehensive answer is probably very difficult. One would need a Buddhist scholar who studied both deeply, I guess. For my part, I studied neither of the books, I have no affinity with any religion.
Yet I am shaped by the western society and embrace most if not all of its modern values.
Moreover, books are one thing, how people live their lives and societies legislate their dealings is another.
Observing the world and its history, I notice a few basic truths:
1 Almost all societies are patriarchal.
2 The great empires have all been patriarchal.
3 Guys in private are sexist in the sense that they inherently feel superior to women.
4 Girls in private may ridicule men, but never claim to be superior or in charge. This is a weak point, since I can not really be there when girls are among each other, so I need to rely on discussions with some and on movies and books.
5 In Europe, only since 1975, women have the right to vote everywhere.
6 Very few women are in relationships with a man who has less earning potential/status/power than they themselves. Guys seem to mind a lot less.
The human species evolved with a social model where guys rule and women follow.
There must have been a competitive advantage to adopt this model.
In our modern times where hunting and hard physical labour to survive are largely overcome, the advantage of this model has vanished. It turned into a disadvantage.
I can be argued that the last 60 years of immense wealth creation in the west and its corresponding rise in living standards is due to not only to technology, but to a great extent due to the inclusion of women in the workforce, in the public sphere; unleashing the benefits of talent in the other 50% of the population.
Ideologically much less constrained by books written 2000 or 1500 years ago, we have adapted our model and fared very well indeed doing so.
Genetically, deep down inside our emotions and instincts, the last century has not left any trace. Mothers in the West largely continue to teach their boys to rule and their daughters to follow. We are living our lives in modernity, trying to reconcile the modern paradigm with our intuition that it is wrong: The birth of political correct speech. Hypocrisy.
The result is confusion.
Does this affect you?