In chapter 8 of the Lotus Sutra, I stumbled on the part that’s translated as “exempt from womankind” for a while.
Women aren’t excluded. It looks on the surface as though they could be denied the teachings, but that doesn’t jibe with the landscape. No height, no depth, one cannot put himself above or below another.
So … no sex, no gender: these are constructs, not relevant to the way. Like the monk who didn’t put the thought of the woman down after carrying her across the river, we have to brush our conceptions aside.
In a way, societal sex-based roles are another fold of cloth that obscures the jewel of truth we’re already carrying.