Exactly this kind of problem arises within every scriptural tradition. In teaching ancient texts I have found it helpful to remind students of the following:
Writings intended for an audience thousands of years ago are bound by social ideas of their time just as much as they are by the vocabulary and grammar of their languages. Ancient scriptures require translation of concepts as much as they do language, and a word-for-word translation is not always a fair representation of content.
The important question is not whether a classical text espouses views that would not be acceptable today—you may be sure it will. Being cross with ancient India for not being modern Boston is one of the less useful ways of approaching a text. The question we should ask is whether the problematic statements are structurally essential to the text as a whole, or whether they can be regarded as merely quaint relics of bygone times.
Ancient texts will be sexist and homophobic. Count on it. There’s no way to put a good face on this. But to focus on trace elements of vanished cultures to the exclusion of the explicitly and consciously developed content is to miss the really important points.
A sobering thought, which should lead to a more generous view of ancient texts, is the consideration of our own failures of awareness. My neighbors all drive enormous SUV’s. It doesn’t seem to occur to them that this is an eco-crime. My neighbors are not however criminals: they have a failure of awareness. To berate them is unlikely to improve their understanding.
Failures of awareness are part of the human condition, and human documents, however supernally true, will have flaws that are inescapable when communicating to humans in a particular historical situation.
So yes, there’s sexism in the Pali texts, and trying to candy this over with exegesis only persuades people we are intellectually dishonest. But sexism is not a structurally significant part of the Dharma, and to pretend that it is only persuades people we are captious and self-obsessed. It is there, it’s not right, and it will be hurtful until we advance as a society to where we can view it as a curious delusion of ancient folk without contemporary relevance.
It is our duty to be honest about flaws in our belief systems. It is equally our duty to regard people as beings who essentially mean well and can learn better.