The deep seated drive of Sexism

And the daughters of Tzlefchad approached - When the daughters of Tzefchad heard that the land would be divided to the men and not the women, they gathered to plan. The said: The God's mercy is not like man's mercy. Man has greater mercy on men than on women; but He who spoke and the world was, is not that way, rather his mercy is on everyone equally, men and women, as it says "God is good to all, and his mercy is on all of his creations. (Sifri Pinchas)

This midrash identifies a very deep bias which we suffer from. Even enlightened men can suffer from an unconscious bias against women. This is important for us to realize since we often think that in our enlightened age we have fully overcome this bias. 

God, of course, does not have this bias, rather He relates to all people as His creatures. By extension His Torah also does not have this bias. The Torah does make distinctions between men and women, but these differences are based upon God's knowledge of the different psychological features of men and women, and assigns them different social roles. The Torah is not biased against any group of people and instead wants to guide all people to perfection. Whenever the Torah seems biased on any issues it means that we have not yet understood it, and we should think about the issues more deeply (including investigating our own biases).

This is why the daughters of Tzlefchad approached, they realized that God would be merciful to them, and the law would take into account their sadness at losing the family portion since their father had died. They would not have minded if they had brothers who could receive the portion, but the loss of the family heritage would be very painful. They recognized that human law might be biased against them as women, but God's law would fully take into account their pain.

Even though the Torah is not biased we must be careful when we interpret the Torah not to let this or any other bias guide the interpretation and instead carefully allow the Torah to communicate God's values, which relate to all people equally as His creatures. Through recognizing our biases we can carefully avoid them governing our thought, and free our minds to understand the Torah correctly.