Yoma 6 a, b

Why is the High Priest sequestered for an entire week to ensure his ritual purity on Yom Kippur?  If the rabbis are worried about his state of ritual purity based on intimate contact with his wife who learns retroactively that she was niddah, he should still have time to immerse before the rituals of Yom Kippur.  The rabbis argue about this throughout amud (a), considering different views on the nature of ritual purity, the practicalities of separation and immersion, and the limitations that are associated with different types of impurity.

As an aside, I am still learning about the different sources of ritual impurity and their relative consequences.  Some forms of impurity can be contracted easily, through sitting on an object or touching a person.  Others do not carry the same degree of transmissibility.  Uterine blood and corpses (including the corpses of creeping animals) seem to be the primary sources of ritual impurity.  I am looking forward (well, with some reservations) to learning more about these seemingly arbitrary rules.  There is no question that these rules serve to limit women's participation in functioning and thus in decision-making on a systemic level.  

Amud (b) wonders at the differences between the effects of ritual impurity through different types of contact.  We learn from Rav Chiyya that 
the zav or zavah,
the leper or female leper,
the man who had intercourse with a menstruating woman,
and the person who is impure because of contact with a corpse
will be ritually pure following immersion during the day.

However, 
the menstruating woman,
and the woman who has gone through childbirth
become ritually pure following immersion in the nighttime.

Further, the rabbis discuss impurity imparted by a corpse in greater detail.  Is this type of impurity treated with more or less stringency that ritual impurity caused by intercourse with a menstruating woman?  We learn that when the majority of a community is impure due to contact with a corpse, a priest who is ritually impure is excepted; he is allowed to perform rituals on behalf of the community.  However, a priest who is ritually pure is preferable.

The rabbis are concerned about how to function when a priest's patrilineal family all carries ritual impurity. They assert that in this case another family should be chosen to perform the required rituals. 

Before learning this material I watched a film called Purity directed by Anat Zuria.  It examines some of the effects of the practice of Taharat HaMishpacha, where women apply these concepts about women's ritual status to all parts of their lives in modern times.  While some of these ideas can create meaning and beauty, other ideas can become limiting and even traumatizing when put into practice.  How can we reconcile the intentions of our rabbis, alive 2000 years ago, with the traditions and laws that we live with today?  How can we ignore the fact that men, and only men, created these practices on behalf of G-d?  Is it not possible that they got it wrong?