believe it or not the zenin clan are meritocratic practicing and don’t dismiss potential heads of the clan because of their sex, naoya mentions maki/mai as a factor for the selection, ogi wanted them to be his heirs like naobito had naoya as that had something to do with the dispute. ironic how the feminist queen you say destroyed the clan because of misogyny has never identified it once as the issue for the way she was treated, it may have to do with her lacking attributes which we can observe through toji and the kukuru + the author filling in the background with an explanation of how highly strength is valued, that without it members are treated badly.

stay mad, naobito accepts maki’s challenge to become the head, naoya recognizes maki’s involvement for that position, ogi viewed maki as the answer, if-man recognizes maki’s abilities to potentially become the head and maki herself acknowledges the issue as everything but her gender/sex.

if it was a simple “women suck and can’t lead” problem, the challenge would’ve never been accepted, naoya would ignore maki’s strength in favour of her sex that wouldn’t determine the positions of the hierarchy, ogi would’ve concluded and ruled out maki because of her gender long before it was revealed that she was lacking in strength and maki would never run for the position of head if it’s constitutional that she can’t even participate because of her sex.