Christina Rees, a member of the Archbishop's Council and General Synod, made the comments as new laws are revealed this week to fast-track women bishops into the Upper House.
The Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has ordered the law to be re-written to allow woman to jump the queue of bishops waiting for a seat.
It means the first female bishop would take the next place in the 'Lords Spiritual' when it becomes free, which could happen as soon as the middle of next year.
There were concerns it could take ten years before a female bishop would get a seat in the Lords, after the Church of England voted in favour of them last month.
Christian Rees told Premier's News Hour: "If the Church of England is serious about having institutional parity between women and men in the church, and wants to have women in that position of senior episcopal oversight also playing a role in the Lords, then this is what has to happen.
"I've been working with this issue for over twenty-five years, and there are a lot of women who have served their whole professional ministries as deacons and then priests and got to retirement age before they could be even considered as bishops.
"They would've made wonderful bishops and the only reason they weren't allowed to be bishops is because they were female in the Church of England.
"So if a handful of men perhaps have to be gracious and step back and allow their Christian sisters to take their places that have been denied them for so many years, I think that's a very very small price to pay.
"We'll see the quality of bishops going up... the most senior women who are now deans and archdeacons... have stacks of experience and many years [behind them].
"So I expect in about another decade we'll see roughly even numbers of women and men taking up holy orders and hopefully roughly even numbers of women and men being appointed as our senior leaders in the House of Bishops."