On one thought it seems the universe is pointing to the fact that once the soul is released to achieve its purpose, it can take any of the skins in any given part of the stage to execute its free will and work towards its maximum potential.
Soul is not only an identity for the underlying burst of energy bundle released by the divine energy into this visible universe to discover the purpose. In my opinion, the divine energy has a highly significant controlling function on the soul - that is to promulgate the law of karma. So the divine energy has to track the thoughts and deeds of these individual souls (in different forms) with its infinite intelligence and decide whether they exercised their free-will in the right way. Based on the activities and thoughts, each soul carries a repository of karma - a sum total reflection of karma from all good deeds and bad deeds - arising out of its free will. This load of karma on the soul has the capacity to affect the current life or if it is found to be significant at the time of death, can decide the next skin and stage that this soul is expected to take. For this reason it is reasonably safe to assume that once a soul is created, it is indestructible till the great merge.
Before somebody starts pointing to me that there are extraordinary senses present in animals and birds (like the pigeon's homing sense or dolphin's echo-locating sense), I would like to state that in a general perspective, of a given body of a species , there are 6 base senses that we can identify. Not all base 6 senses are present in all the species. The 6 base senses are as given below with samples of species:
Sense of Touch - Samples include some trees, plants, creepers, grass etc., (One sensed organisms)
Sense of Touch and Taste - Samples include some species of fish and sea organisms (Two sensed organisms)
Sense of Touch, Taste and Smell - Samples include some species of ants, termites and leeches (Three sensed organisms)
Sense of Touch, Taste, Smell and See - Samples include some Insects (four sensed organisms)
Sense of Touch, Taste, Smell, See and Hear - Samples include some animals and birds (Five sensed organisms)
Sense of Touch, Taste, Smell, See, Hear and Think - Humans (Six sensed organism)
Let us consider the case of a humans since this species is supposed to be special with its sixth sense - ability to think and become self-aware.
Up to the point of the soul and to some extent of the astral body( In a simple sense, all forms have this physical form, astral form and the Karana Sharira form that houses the soul) which includes - the basic burst of divine energy plus the soul as identity and the astral body cover for the form taken - there is perhaps no difference between a male and a female. If you try to think from the point of the divine energy, given its infinite intelligence, perhaps, it always encapsulates multiple reasons to engineer a design. That too when considering a sophisticated design like the human, for each aspect of the design, it might have considered several reasonings.
Hence when the final physical form of the human species was completed by grand design, it might have considered a way to effect reproduction so that this species can continue to multiply and excel. Perhaps this is the most important and fundamental reason for creating the male and female forms. At some point in time, primarily due to the need to hunt for food and the fact that the females were weak while and after undergoing the process of giving birth, males were considered strong and 'superior'. In current context , considering we are not in such pre-historic settings, it is absurd to continue with this belief and believe in male superiority and continue the culture of dominating the females. Besides the need for reproduction, perhaps the other significant reason for the divine energy to construct male and female forms are to make the species experience sex as an aspect to remind 'the great merge'. Other reasons like motherly nourishment, love ,security and similar other experiences may also have played a role in creating the female form. Thus the divine energy by diversifying into 2 different forms, is multiplying the experiences of the soul.
In the current setting, it is not the physical strength that decides who is calling shots in a setting like family, but perhaps it is the financial strength that defines the leadership position. If a woman is capable of asserting herself as an independent soul, and not dependent on a man for living, getting herself into financially independent state by using her intelligence and subsequently a stable job, then she too should be able to consider the higher purposes of life and not just worry about food, shelter and clothing. This does not mean she has to always consider her male partner as a competitor. She being independent, should in no way affect her ability to love her family.
Also, we all seem to know how karma works. Hypothetically speaking, at some point in time and in a place, if a dominant male population starts and persists the culture of male domination and sets them as societal rules, it may be sensed by the divine energy as not the right thing (since male domination is not one of the many reasons it considered for creating the male and female forms !) and hence it will set the karmic actions rolling where the dominant-males are set to be born as females in the same male dominant society and experience the 'being-dominated' woes. The divine energy will do this relentlessly till the wrongful soul learns that male-domination is not the right thing, assuming that it is the only 'sin', that it sensed in the wrongful soul. It - "Male Domination" works against the fundamental principle of the individual soul as a traveller in the universe collecting experiences under several skins and stages and working towards the ultimate realization on the purpose of life .
In my personal opinion, in the current setting of this world, there is gross injustice meted out to our female counterparts by not recognizing them as equals. For example, we do not see god-woman but only god-men mostly in any part of the world. Hugely responsible jobs like being business leaders, world leaders and community leaders are all men ! We have to take conscious effort to remove this prejudice and probably the best place to start is to design an iron-clad constitution where the rights of the women are protected. Perhaps, one step towards this would be to reserve 50+-5 % percentage of all the important jobs (as mentioned above) to females thus ensuring equality.
We, as humans ,have this special capability as the 6th sense - the ability to think. Before we attempt to think about higher purposes of life, we should use it to ensure basic hygiene in our society - one of which is to ensure equal treatment of women in all aspects of life.
This equality principle applies also to people who identifies with other genders too. We cannot be judgemental about their disposition since the purpose of life is to collect experiences in the journey of life and excel as human. Perhaps nature has blessed them to experience life a bit different from the rest of us.
In the current state of affairs, we seem to be getting an impression that only males are destined to take on higher purposes in life including establishing mastery on spiritual aspects . It seems, to a lot of women, that she has to play a subordinated role in the family/society. And if she decides to accomplish higher purposes of life including mastery of spiritual science, then the current situation is such that she is being subconsciously guided to accept that she has to be born as a male( in her next birth) to achieve this. This perception created by long established societal norms is as cruel as it sounds! It is high time that -we humans- use our sixth sense to dispel this unacceptable belief before we attempt to elevate ourselves spiritually.
Hari Om!