Your posts are right on the money. Pagan societies did not treat women very nicely...or men for that matter. It took the arrival of Christianity to liberate the bondages of misery for both sexes.
“Pagen societies did not treat women very nicely...”
Actually, before societies realized the contribution of the male to reproduction, women often had more power, as seen sometimes with matrilineal societies. It is theorized that as animal husbandry became common, males realized both their physical power in handling large animals, and the male contribution to parentage.
The period of 17 to 12th centuries BC. was an interesting transitional period. Murals from Thera (1600’s BC) show important goddesses. Shortly thereafter, Queen Hatshepsut of Egypt was a major power, although her successor tried mightyly to erase her name. The murals from Crete of the same period show female bull leapers who must have had some importance. In the following centuries there were rich buriels of women in the Russian steppes. They even had tall headdresses, which to my mind seemed a little like the crown of upper and lower Egypt. The Roman’s were impressed with the Germanic women warriors.
It took a lot of hard work on the part of men to subjugate women, but they finally succeeded after a fashion.