In world religion, gender inequality has always been a major concern. This inequality did not exist based on concepts of original religion but through cultural influence and social manipulation. The essence of Buddhism originated from a human being (known as Buddha). And Buddha is the one who has achieved the highest enlightenment. Often in the concept of Buddhism there was confusion about how much devotion was necessary for a monk or nun to achieve great “Enlightenment”. Women in Buddhism face many more challenges to become enlightened. Throughout this essay I will focus on how the Buddhist woman must be reborn as a man to be fully enlightened. This means that this essay will examine the difficulties women face as nuns and how they are never achieved “bodhisattva”. My views will be justified through Buddha's opinion on women, women in Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism, and the challenges Buddhist women faced due to culture and social context. In Buddhism enlightenment allows the mind to be free from any attachment, struggle and desire to achieve purity and peace of mind. According to the teachings of the Buddha, men and women have equal right and freedom to achieve nirvana (Rahula 37). But in the Buddha's time, women were treated as bad faith and their whole lives were dedicated to their husbands and domestic choirs (Gutschow 199). And this was a situation due to typical Indian values. Since then, Buddha's childhood went through a similar environment that made him show some hesitation towards enlightened women (Fisher 101). This hesitation was due to the fact that, to become enlightened (according to the definition of enlightenment) the person must choose an ascetic life (101). For example, when the Buddha's adoptive mother, Mahapajapati,... middle of paper... to reach full enlightenment and become “The Buddha,” the person must be born as the male gender (Fisher 106). All of this argues that in Buddhism women need to be reborn as men to achieve enlightenment. Bibliography1. Anderson, Gordon. “Buddhism Lesson 1.” HUMA 2800 Buddhism Conference. University of York, North York. January 29, 2014. Lesson.2. Falk, Nancy Auer. and Rita M. Gross. Unspoken worlds: women's religious lives. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Pub., 1989. Print.3. Fisher, Mary Pat. Women in religion. New York: Pearson Longman, 2007. Print.4. Gutschow, Kim. Being a Buddhist Nun: The Struggle for Enlightenment in the Himalayas. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2004. Print.5. Rahula, Walpola. What the Buddha taught. New York: Grove, 1974. Web. March 12. 2014..