Never-ending Exodus

In the beginning of Exodus I was interested and following just fine. I was paying attention, I was understanding what was goin on, to the best of my knowledge, that is, and I was ready to get through to Leviticus. But then there was a wake-up call. Exodus turns into a pile of orders and instructions that are totally not fun to read! I had to look to see how big a cubit was....huge! I have been tryin to get through Exodus so that I can power my way through Leviticus and move onto something a tad more my speed, but I have to put down the bible every 5 minutes and do something a little more entertaining before I start to cry from reading every detailed order on how to make the tabernacle....or what seems to be, 50 other creations as well. The lacuna doesn't seem to be missing with all the details provided to make each monument, or how to have each feastival. Sometimes I think it's a little nicer not to have so much detail. Of course it would be better to have more detail in the actual human interaction, but that seems to be sparse, whereas there is no reason to keep it short and sweet when dictating right? Kinda makes me wish I had that kind of power. Not really, but it would be interesting if everyone had to listen to every single word you said.
Anyway, Thursday was an interesting day and the lecture was, for me at first, kind of confusing. I didn't really completely understand the whole most men, all women and children, and elderly are feminine thing, but towards the end it was making more sense to me. I liked how she drew the illustrations of how Israel always strays from God, but he keeps taking Israel back and how Hosea has to marry a woman completely unworthy and unfaithful just to reflect what God was doing with Israel. Then to think women in the bible were portrayed as "not clean" or "unfaithful" and how they were that way to prove God's point with Israel over and over again was an eye opener for me. It makes sense for sure. However, I kept thinking about Ruth and Mary and how they don't seem to fit into that scenario. So now my question is, What purpose do these righteous women pose if for the majority of the bible women are considered basically undeserving? Just curious. I would think the answer would be simple, but after taking this class so far, I'm starting to think there really are no simple explainations for anything.