Now I'll have my say. 1) Sidekick was a poor word choice. It carried with it all manner of connotations and images, none too pleasant, and served as an Off switch to the listener's ear. (An overly sensitive listener, I might add.) But it's near the truth. Women were made as helpers, equal-share parnters in the human endeavor. Jesse Duplantis once described God's ingenious method of creation this way:
"God did not take a bone from Adam's foot, that Eve should be
beneath him. Nor did he take a bone from Adam's head, that
she should be above him. He took a bone from Adam's side,
that she should walk with him, beside him."
That's as good a direct quote as I can remember (it may not be word-for-word exact), but you get my point.
At this point, I find it pertinent to add 2) Men and women are not equal! By that I mean we are not the same. For example, I firmly believe that women should not be permitted to enlist in the armed forces. Women were not created with the physical prowess required to perform adequately in that capacity. Men were. This does not make women inferior. It makes them different. This is where God's genius shines again: where one is lacking, the other fills in. We all know that men are "out of touch" with their emotions sometimes; women seem to have no end to theirs. Women are limited in their physical strength, but even the "couch potato" man can show an exorbitant amount of strength when it is called for (say, to protect a loved one). We don't have to be equal to make a difference for God.
On a related note, 3) Mary did a wonderful thing by being obedient to the will of God, and she did a good job raising Jesus, but that is where her "pat on the back" ends. She did what God asked her to do. If you're doing what God is asking you to do, then you deserve the same credit, the same "pat on the back". Maybe it doesn't seem to be happening on such a grand scale, but you are doing no less to effect the salvation of mankind than she did.
In conclusion, I'll say this: the key to resolving these issues - of women with inferiority complexes and male opressors - is to re-examine the source of all Truth (the Bible, for those of you not catching on), in order to rediscover our God-intended roles as men and women. Once we've done that, it's up to us to accept those roles, be content with those roles, and live out those roles as best we can.