Gender distinctions in the tabernacle?

I've been reading through Mark and I'm up to the clearing of the Temple (Chapter 11).

 

In the design of Herod's temple there were certain restrictions placed on different types of people. Certain people were allowed closer access to the Most Holy Place, and thus the presence of God.

 

Furthest away were the Gentiles. There were actually signs placed on the walls leading to the temple that said that Gentiles would be responsible for their own deaths if they proceded further. Jewish women were allowed a little further in. Jewish males were allowed even further (and they were able to view the priests performing their sacrifices and rituals). The priests and the high priests were allowed into the temple itself, and the high priest, once a year, into the Most Holy Place.

 

So the Jewish men were allowed closer to God than the women.

 

I naturally applied this to my thinking about gender relationships and roles today.

 

Maybe men are somehow closer to God? Maybe there is a hierarchy of the genders in God's eyes?

 

Then I wondered, is this how God intended it to be in the first place?

 

Reading through Exodus and Leviticus, I can't see that there is any distinction between how close men and women are to God. The tabernacle had the central tent (which contained the Most Holy Place) and then a fence around it. Of course the priests had more access than the Jewish laity, but other than that I can't see any distinction between ceremonially clean males and females. It seems they were all allowed equally to the entrance of the tabernacle. I wonder, if even Gentiles, or God fearers, were they also granted the same access?

 

Does this mean that from the time of the tabernacle, to the time of Herod's temple, that sexism had become so ingrained in the Jewish leadership that it was actually built into the architecture of the temple?

 

Or were there good reasons for this male -->  female --> gentile distinction?