In Jainism a woman cannot become enlightened directly from a woman's body. First she has to be born as a man and then she can become enlightened. I have been talking to Jaina priests and monks – they have no argument to support this.
I was asking them, “Does enlightenment happen in the body? Has it something to do with hormones, female or male? Obviously it has nothing to do with hormones, nothing to do with the body itself.
No chemistry is involved, no physics is involved, no physiology is involved. It is a question of consciousness, and consciousness is neither male nor female. Then on what grounds do you go on saying that a woman cannot become enlightened?”