The Exploration Of Shinto Restrictions To Women

Introduction

The depiction of women in Shinto can be found as early as Kojiki, Japan’s e oldest chronicle, where female deities appeared in the creation mythology and their status compared with male counterparts began to showing signs. When Izanagi and Izanami, the divine couple who was responsible for creating the islands of Japan, descended from the heaven bridge to the island of Onogoro and circled around the Heavenly August Pillar, it was the female deity Izanami who exclaimed “What a fine young man!” and then the male deity Izanagi replied with “What a fine young woman!” And then Izanami had two failed offspring, as her first son named “Hiruko” was without limbs and boneless and the second child was also unsatisfactory. Gods in the Heaven pointed out that the crux of failures lied in Izanami’s greeting her husband first, because it was unnatural for females to take the initiatives, and this explained why their offspring had been misshapen. These mistakes were corrected only after the couple returned to the pillar again, where Izanagi greeted his wife first and Izanami responded appropriately. This mythological story to some extent demonstrates females’ inferiority to males even though the sun goddess Amateratsu who was regarded to be the most major deity, was also a woman.

Starting from the creation mythology, this article will attempt to explore how women are restricted in Shinto, by looking into women’s engagement in Shinto in both historical and modern times. And an analysis of the reasons of Shinto’s taboos on women specifically will be conducted, which will be followed by a conclusion and further discussion.

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Roles of Women in Shinto History

Actually, women were not inherently deprived of power throughout the Shinto development and Japanese history. They were once serving important positions as the medium between deities and human kinds, where they announced the wills of divines to men who would implemented such orders. For example, from 7th century to 14th century, nieces or daughters of the Emperor or Empress could act as intermediaries at Ise shrine, one of Shinto’s most sacred sites (Felicia, 1970).

However, as the Imperial family gradually absorbed powers and a centralized empire was formed, even though “divine will” was still dominant, politics started to gain its influences and accordingly, women began to retire more and more from the political lives and became the emperor’s representative in the religious sphere.Then as the Taika Reform led to a centralized absolute monarchy, only male priests were authorized to perform official priests, and the marginalization of women in Shinto was even deepened after Meiji Restoration, where Shinto was set up to be a national religion to consolidate the political authorities and women could no longer be a member of the official priesthood. It was not until the end of the Second World War after which Shinto and the state were rendered legally distinct, that women regained priesthood (Haruko,1993). Nevertheless, women were only considered as substitutes for and assistants of their male colleges, and by today, Shinto’s restrictions on women are still not uncommon.

Shinto Restrictions to Women in Contemporar Japan

Women are not absolutely excluded from Shinto rituals or events, but there are still many restrictions on them, which can be reflected from some recent events in Japan. Labeled as “an exceptional example of the tradition of worship of a sacred island” by UNESCO (“Sacred Island of ”, n.d.), the island of Okinoshima is a divine Shinto site where the shrine of Okitsu was built in 17th century to worship the kami Tagorihime, who was one of the three daughters of Susanoo, the kami of the ocean and storms. In history, rituals and prayers to wish for safe ocean voyages were conducted there, thus this place is so scared that even today, visitors must strip naked and undergo ritual purification by bathing in the sea before stepping into this island; they are also required not to take anything from the island and furthermore, forbidden to disclose any information about what occurs on the island during their visit. Such rules may still sound reasonable considering the sacredness of Okinoshima, however, another specific rule will be controversial: women are completely prohibited from visiting the island under any circumstances(Manson,2017). It may also be very hard for people who have no idea about Shinto to try to understand that a site sacred to a goddess and declared a UNESCO world heritage site (as the principle of gender equality penetrates UNESCO’s Constitution) would put such complete restriction on an half of population.

Another case of women in Sumo also reflects how women are restricted from participating in Shinto’s events. Seen to be originated from kami summoning and ceremonially battling, Sumo is more like a ritual than a simple sport. At the site of Sumo, the sumo ring, also known as the dohyō, is greatly important as marks the border line of Shinto shrines and thus must be kept pure where wrestlers will repeatedly scatter salt before battles begin. However, a later event caused controversies. In 2018, the 67 year old mayor Ryozo Tatami gave a welcome speech in the dohyō before a mach began, but he suddenly collapsed. After that, a group of women rushed into the ring to give first aid and perform CPR. But within seconds, an announcer said repeatedly through the PA system, “Ladies, please exit the sumo ring.” And spectators had seen officials throw salt into the ring after the women had left. Such movements were apparently showing the rejections of women entering into sacred places and got criticized by some people who claimed that the mayor’s life may not be saved without those female medical workers (Manson,2018).

And in addition to these two specific cases, generally speaking, taboo on women can be found in many situations, for example, even though miko, the assistants of priests can be frequently seen, women serving as Shinto priests are relatively rare; women are barred from serving in the higher ranks of some of the most important shrines in Japan, including Ise Grand Shrine.Thus, Shinto’s restrictions to women are common even in modern Japan.

Reasons of Shinto Taboos on Women

Even though women were not inherently marginalized and on the contrary, once hold important positions in Shinto rituals, they were gradually deprived of powers as a centralized monarchy was established and politics started to outweigh and then make use of religion as tools to consolidate the reigns. Therefore, women’s being excluded in Shinto could partially be explained by the need of dominance. Meantime, it is also believed that the introduction of the Confucianism and Buddhism in Japan from the Heian period contributed to the decline of women’s status in Shinto.

In 6th century, Buddhism was introduced into Japan. In Heian era, discrimination between monks and nuns firstly appeared where nuns were excluded from public positions held at state ceremonies since they were regarded sinful and incapable of obtaining salvation. The main reason of the exclusion lied in their “impure” body because women had frequent menstrual period and thus had to suffer the retribution of falling into a “Bloodbowl Pond”(Chang, 2009). And such conceptions were emulated by Shinto in their teaching and preaching to bar women and men who had contact with menstrual women from shrines (Fumiko,2005).

In addition, the Confucianism imported from China was also a men-oriented and patriarchal psychology. Women were at the bottom of the Confucian hierarchy and they were expected to conduct uncomplaining obedience as children to their fathers, wives to their husbands, and widows to their grown-up sons (Richey, n.d.). And since families were considered to be a reflection of the whole society, women generally were marginalized to a large extent. The impacts of Confucianism’s doctrines rapidly expanded when Japan entered the Edo period (Sugano,2007), also influencing how women were treated in Shinto. Therefore, as both the political and ideological influences factor in, Shinto’s restrictions to women then could be explained.

Conclusion

This article briefly introduced how women were restricted in Shinto, supported by an exploration of their roles in Shinto in history, and well as specific cases in modern Japan. It is suggested that women’s roles in Shinto went through ups and downs; although females were the prototypes of many important Shintoism deities and once played major roles in Shinto rituals as well as ceremonies, with the political powers were centralized, and Confucianism and Buddhism were introduced into Japan, women started to be marginalized in Shinto, which has been lasting till today when women are restricted to enter Shinto’s sacred sites, and criticism of such inequality also widely existed.

Actually, this further leads to the question of how to deal with the relationship between the traditionally religious principle and the modern need of gender equality. Following the case mentioned above where female medical helpers were asked to leave dohyō due to their “impurity”, Takarazuka City Mayor Tomoko Nakagawa gave a powerful speech after this happened, in which she criticized the misogynistic rules of sumo at a sumo exhibition and expressed that “I’m a female mayor but I am a human being. Tradition is important, but it is also important to have courage and make a change. I don’t care whichever side of the ring we stand, but I do want both men and women to be treated equally.” Yet, this equality-calling speech was delivered out of dohyō.

There is nothing wrong to obey the religious regulations, considering that they reflect the core spirits of thousands years of development, however, the austere observation of religious rules should also give room to, if not making concessions for, the needs of modern social and spiritual needs, especially when such needs are closely connected to whether women, an half of this planet’s population, are fairly treated.

Reference

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