Japan’s Sacred Sumo and the Exclusion of Women: The Olympic Male Sumo Wrestler (Part 1)

The 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo offer a fitting and timely point of departure to consider the religion-based exclusion of women and, by extension, to peer into the nation-culture-religion-gender nexus in Japan. The Japan Sumo Association, a quasi-governmental corporation, champions itself as...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inReligions (Basel, Switzerland ) Vol. 12; no. 9; p. 749
Main Author DeWitt, Lindsey E.
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Basel MDPI AG 01.09.2021
Subjects
Corporate sponsorship
COVID-19
Economic summit conferences
Females
Gender
Japanese religions
Olympic games
Paralympic Games
sacred space
Sex crimes
Sex discrimination
sports
sumo wrestling
Taboos
the Olympics
Traditions
Wrestling
France
Japan
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Summary:The 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo offer a fitting and timely point of departure to consider the religion-based exclusion of women and, by extension, to peer into the nation-culture-religion-gender nexus in Japan. The Japan Sumo Association, a quasi-governmental corporation, champions itself as the custodian of a divine affair cultivated by male deities and mortal men, and exclusive of women. The Sumo Association bans women and girls from entering or even touching the wrestling ring, lest they violate sumo tradition and taint their so-called sacred battlefield. Critics of sumo’s female taboo denounce the Association’s rule as anachronistic and sexist as well as illegal. The opposition focuses attention on the need for change, and justifiably so, but there exists an equally pressing need to think about why the ban prevails even with strong opposition. Olympic presentations of the male sumo wrestler open our eyes as to one such abetting force: persuasive and politically expedient visions of sumo wrestling as an ancient, sacred, and exclusively male endeavor.
ISSN:2077-1444
2077-1444
DOI:10.3390/rel12090749