Striyah sudras tatha vaisyah, including woman and sudras and vaisyas, they are considered as less intelligent. They are considered as less intelligent. Therefore, according to Vedic system, a boy born in a brahmana family, he is allowed all the samskaras, reformatory, purificatory process, but the girl is not. Why? Now, because a girl has to follow her husband. So if her husband is brahmana, automatically she becomes brahmana. There is no need of separate reformation. And by chance she may be married with a person who is not a brahmana, then what is the use of making her a brahmana? That is the general method.

So therefore the…, even born in a brahmana family, a woman is taken as woman, not as brahmana. But Krsna says, “Never mind. Even if she is woman, even she is sudra, even she is vaisya, or any other,” I mean to say, “family born in, never mind.” Mam hi partha vyapasritya, if anyone is bona-fidely made Krsna conscious, te ‘pi yanti param gatim, so his way is open to the path of Vaikuntha, param gatim.

From Srila Prabhupada’s lecture on July 16, 1969, Los Angeles