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I don’t know that people are trying to prove Jesus wrong by female ordination — I’m not a proponent of female ordination, but Jewish society at the time wouldn’t have been able to handle female rabbis, which was what Jesus’ Apostles were somewhat akin to. Plus, more and more we’re learning that women had a much bigger role in the early non-institutionalized Church than they do now and were slowly pushed aside as institutionalization occurred. We know that at the very least there were female deacons.

I’m not a proponent of female ordination, but Jewish society at the time wouldn’t have been able to handle female rabbis, which was what Jesus’ Apostles were somewhat akin to.

Yet the times have often favored a female priesthood and never more so than when Christ ordained his first priests, nearly 2,000 years ago. Virtually all the pagan religions of his day had priestesses, and it would have been entirely normal and natural for him to choose women for this task. He had, moreover, a number of excellent potential candidates, from his own Mother, who accompanied him at his first miracle and stood with him as he suffered on the cross, to Mary Magdalene or the women of Bethany. Instead, he chose only men, and he remained immovable on this, continuing right to the end to exhort and train them all, leaving thus a Church which turned out to be safely founded on a rock. From those twelve men a direct line of apostolic succession has given the Catholic Church the bishops and priests it has today.
WOMEN PRIESTS: NO CHANCE

There’s a heck of a lot of things Jews weren’t comfortable with, such as eating “unclean” meat etc.

This is one reason why I do not buy the “cultural” argument when it comes to female ordination to pastorship.

Christ upsets the apple cart of the Jews throughout Scripture in very fundamental ways. He wasn’t exactly afraid to do so and would have done so if he believed women could be ordained as pastors.

Christ did respect the women in his church very much. He chose women to tell the news of his Resurrection. I used to attend the Reformed Presbyterian Church, a very conservative denomination that is one of the few smaller branches of Presbyterianism that has women deacons. I have come to the conclusion that deaconesses are Biblical.

Now, I am in the Presbyterian Church in America, which doesn’t because honestly I think they are scared of trending toward the mainline PCUSA that is having the fights over gay ministers and already ordain women as pastors. However, the PCA did study it recently and decided to keep things the way they are now with only men deacons. I disagree, but they did a solid Biblical study and tried to look at the issue.

Anyway, the point is....I do think women can be deacons in the sense of Biblical deacons....those that help the sick, comfort and do those sorts of ministry actions. NOT the “deacons” of the Baptist church that really are elders in the Biblical sense.

We know that at the very least there were female deacons.

The women who were 'deacons' in the early Church didn't perform the same ministerial roles that either Permanent or Transitional Deacons perform nowadays.

These days, women are heavily involved in their Parishes in activities such as religious education, nursing, hospitality, bereavement, etc. These are the same functions those women who served as 'deacons' in early Church performed, and those in which women have been involved throughout the history of the Church.

All of the Jews' neighbors had not only priestesses, but goddesses.
It's hardly appropriate to make the assumption that Jesus had no females among his twelve Apostles, and His church had no female priests, because of cowardice in the face of public reaction. After all the Catholic Church, in the Acts of the Apostles, is recorded as having set aside the circumcision and kosher rules, which would have been just as big a deal, or bigger, in historic context.
Speaking of controversy: Jesus said "Eat my Body and drink my Blood." When people turned away, he said to his Apostles, ~~"Heh, just kidding,folks, it's just a metaphor"~~ "Do you want to leave, too?" Christ Almighty, this was not a man afraid of controversy.
The Church sees the priesthood as, among other things, a representation of Christ the Bridegroom. A woman can represent Christ in many ways (as healer, as preacher, even as 'good shepherdess,' if you want to get into the whole series of similes) but cannot 'bodily' represent Christ as the Bridegroom who lays down his life for his Bride, the Church .

There's a lot to the priesthood. More than we know.