Exclusion of women and social conventions

HOW on earth can Kevin O'Donnell, Dec 9, or anyone else know with certainty that Our Lord's not including women among the Apostles was merely due to the social conventions of the time?
What if He had, in fact, quite deliberately excluded women from such offices on principle and not just because of "prudent practicality?"
The tenor of the New Testament taken as a whole appears at least as capable of supporting this alternative interpretation of Our Lord's behaviour, as one that sees it as purely fortuitous, and this view has been upheld by the unanimous consent of Catholic Christianity in all ages.
Odd sectarian groups of course, have had women "celebrants" of their Eucharists, but mainstream orthodox Christianity has always reprobated them, firstly, as delirious enthusiasts, this despite
the fact that it could well be argued that the social conventions of the GraecoRoman world would have easily allowed for Christian women priests, since priestesses — the proper term for such ladies — were well known in their contemporary paganism, and no doubt the lack of their Christian equivalent stopped, in Mr. O'Donnell's phrase, many enlightened second century people from listening to the Christian message.
Moreover, it is disingenuous to quote Galatians 3:28, "in Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, male or female", as an argument in favour of women priests.
It has nothing to do with that matter, but rather is a testimony to the truth that all human beings, whatever their condition, have equal access to God through Christ in baptism. William Tighe Cambridge