Does Deuteronomy 25:11-12 command mutilation and promote sexism?

Deuteronomy 25:11-12 states; "if two men, a man and his countryman, are struggling together, and the wife of one comes near to deliver her husband from the hand of the one who is striking him, and puts out her hand and seizes his genitals, then you shall cut off her hand; you shall show no pity."

Surely to anyone who has read this passage, it must seem absolutely bizarre, not to mention cruel. The wife of a man gets her hand cut off for defending him? How could someone possibly believe this nonsense? Well I've probably said this before and will explain it more in another post, but virtually no Christian views the Old Testament Mosaic law as a law meant for a perfect society. Rather the Mosaic law was meant to improve upon a society and culture with a great many issues, in a specific time period and in a specific cultural setting.

But even so, how does this law improve anyone's culture? It promotes absurd punishments and suggests a misogynistic view of women. Paul Copan in his book "Is God a Moral Monster?" I think answers this question fairly well. He points out that the Hebrew word used here for hand is kaph, a word which refers to any round or concave object in Hebrew language. This hebrew word, however, is never used to describe a hand as a whole, but only the palm of a hand. But it would be odd for the text to say that one must cut off the palm of a woman's hand. If the text was commanding that Israelites cut off the hand of a woman when she commits such an act, it would have made much more sense to use the word yad in place of kaph. A more plausible reading of this passage is that cutting off a woman's kaph really refers to shaving her groin. This was a practice commonly used to humiliate women in places such as Babylon and Sumer. What's more kaph is often used to refer to a woman's groin in the OT such as Song of Songs 5:5. In addition the word translated cut is not the standard word used to cut something off (piel) but has a milder connotation (qal). (Copan, p 121,122).

To grab a man's genitals especially in an effort to harm him, was considered a shameful act, and could prevent the man from ever having children. Thus this is a case of humiliation for humiliation. If one was going to cause humiliation, one would suffer humiliation. This certainly isn't ideal, but it is certainly an improvement to other ancient Near Eastern cultures, whose law codes would have endorsed mutilation. Such as the Middle Assyrian Law that if a woman damaged a man's testicle her finger was to be cut off, and if she damaged both testicles, her eyes were to be gouged out. (see the Cod of the Assyrians I.8.)