Condescension

As Rav Nachman Bullman once told me, the practice of telling women they are more spiritual than men is actually subtly condescending. I think the logic would go like this. Men run the religion. Obviously, you are not going to hand the religion to the less spiritual person, so one might take this as an insult to women. But then we explain, that women have their own arena, their own role which is equally important and shows their equal but different capabilities. That's believable and supportable by Torah sources. But to say that really the ones who don't run things are superior. You have to be pretty stupid to believe it and pretty condescending to expect that anyone will believe it.

It has been my experience that the men who are the most vociferous about putting forth apologetics are the most arrogant.