In the Noble lifepaths for Mannnish stock, noble ranks of Baron and above seem to all require either knighthood or the Lord lifepath as prerequisites. And the Duke lifepath’s current error (“Requires: Duke…”) means only knights will enter that lifepath.
So, how do I burn up a baroness or noblewoman of higher rank? Do I just take Lord rather than Dame? Are there no contessas duchesses, or noble princesses in BWG? 
On the Duke error, is that supposed to be Count instead of Duke in the requirement?
Anyway, as for the main point of the thread, it is important to remember there are three tracks of nobility in the setting.
One is the making good on your inherited position life paths. That’s the Lord route, where you don’t bother being a knight. You inherit a title of whatever rank and you actually administer your lands and whatnot. You have the birthright via Traits and you spend your time making good on them via the lifepaths. The ultimate one here is Prince of the Blood, where you are ‘just’ a royal heir.
The second is the earned title route, where you serve as a knight and administer lands of sufficient size (and probably field considerable forces). You still need to have the Trait indicating sufficient rank of nobility to start the game near the top, but you don’t have to put in the time doing the noble thing through the ranks. The culmination of this is Noble Prince, which is rule over quite a swath of territory (100 Resource points is quite a lot of land and connections).
Now obviously there is a lot of criss-crossing here and it is essentially a matter of, “Did you train for battle or train to rule?”
The third is the nobility by marriage route, which tops out at Dame, because you don’t even have to be of noble birth for these. You can be, and if you are, you can be a noblewoman who primarily administers her own lands and holds her family’s title and all that.
Thanks, The_Tim. So, one could do something like: Born Noble, Young Lady, Lady, Lord, Baron and onward an upward if one were so inclined.
I guess some of the gender-specific terminology was throwing me off.
Yeah. There is no higher rank for simply marrying in, and generally speaking you can’t marry a woman holding a title and get fancy titles for it. However, a woman can inherit the top titles of her family. I mean, it depends on region and time and all that jazz. It also mentions that no lifepath is off limits to women, but there are some lifepaths that require being a woman. So, there’s that.
Tim has the right of it. Nothing prohibits female characters from taking these lifepaths. If you want to be historically accurate and you want to be a lady of higher rank, take the appropriate trait: your lordship (or ladyship), your excellency, your grace.