I would qualify that with most religions are designed to gain power over AL people, not just women. Women held a high place in early Christianity but were gradually seen as of less importance. In the earliest tales about Jesus, Mary Magdelene was a widow named Mary of Magda, a now-gone fishing village and she used her inherited wealth to help Jesus and the Apostles; in later revisions of those stories, she was denounced as a whore because the words of Paul were misinterpreted- by men who craved power and money, of course. With illiterate followers, written texts can be claimed to say anything and women were easy targets of illiterate husbands. Hence, women as chattel throughout much of recirded history.