As soon as I heard about Brown's story (and while I got bored reading the book, up to the point when I tossed it), I kept wondering about how the meaning of Christ's life had to be twisted to make the points in the book.
A few years ago someone wrote a book called The Hidden Christ. It was written to check the veracity of certain facts about Christ, and you'd be surprised that in this case the writer was pretty fair--he disputed some things, seemed to accept some of the stories out of Holy Blood, Holy Grail (Mary being married), yet he could find no evidence that the Resurrection was made up--he discounted SOME of the accepted beliefs, but believed some of the more incredible ones.
I bring this up because it was gratifying to see in that book that the author pushed the fact (NEVER acknowledged these days by secularists) that Christ was the first religious figure to accept women as equals to men, having them as friends and trusted associates, to the point where we know their names to this day. Does that sound like a faith that's trying to erase the contributions of women? Dan Brown has to invent all kinds of stories to claim it is.
The iron age Celts also accepted women as equals.
The Cattle Raid of Cooley begins with an argument between a husband and wife over their property, that would be unthinkable if she did not think of herself as his equal, if not his superior.