Aw, David, Phyllis Zagano would rake you over the coals for that remark! 

I spent a day listening to her and other scholars at a conference on the diaconate about six months ago in Toronto. Despite all that is wrong with clericalism, Zagano sees incorporation into the clerical state via the ordained diaconate as an important step to female empowerment in the Church. Apparently, there are just thousands of positions in the Church that canon law says require a cleric, many occupied now by bishops. Were women clerics via the diaconate, there are no other impediments to them taking on those roles. 

I hasten to add, this was new to me, and I have no real sense of what about this. She did point out that many women with senior positions in diocesan chancellories are limited by their need to get signatures on docs from clerical priests because they can not legally sign them.

From history, it is very clear that deacons once held administrative sway over priests, and the priests hated it.