Although equal rights for men and women are assumed to be a given in the modern age, women are still barred from certain religious practices and sacred places around the world.

In Japan, too, there are sanctuaries and festivals that remain off-limits to women.

In 2018, a woman who came to the aid of a city mayor who had collapsed in a sumo dohyo was told to “get out of the ring”—causing a huge controversy.

Naoko Kobayashi, a professor of religion and gender studies at Aichi Gakuin University, has examined how religious traditions that bar women have formed and changed over time.

She notes that many of these “traditions” are actually modern creations and notes that discussions about the exclusion of women from sacred places are still conducted under the initiative of men.

CONSIDERED ‘IMPURE’

According to Kobayashi, women have been barred from sacred spaces across the globe for reasons as varied as local customs to belief in a jealous, disaster-bearing goddess.

In Japan, female worshippers have been prohibited from paying respects at sacred mountains, temples, shrines and festival venues.

“The view that blood from childbirth and menstruation was ‘unclean’ combined with the Buddhist precept that women disrupt men’s pursuit of detachment from worldly desires,” Kobayashi said. “So, this idea that ‘women are impure beings’ emerged.”

It is believed that many sacred places were made off-limits to women around the 10th century.

Discrimination against and exclusion of women escalated during the Muromachi Period (1336-1573), when the Blood Bowl Sutra spread the idea among the public that women cannot attain Buddhahood because of their “blood-related impurity.”

The religious ban on women’s involvement was lifted officially by an ordinance of the Meiji government in 1872, but many holy places continue to keep women away from their grounds. Some shrines refuse to allow menstruating women to participate in specific Shinto rituals.

“I, myself, have been asked whether I was menstruating and how much I was bleeding,” Kobayashi said.

The summit of Mount Sanjogatake in the Ominesan range in Nara Prefecture is a sacred site of particular importance for mountain ascetics, but even today it is not open to female visitors.

When the surrounding area was inscribed on the UNESCO World Cultural Heritage list in 2004 under the name “Sacred Sites and Pilgrimage Routes in the Kii Mountain Range,” a citizens’ group submitted a petition with more than 10,000 signatures calling for the ban on women to be lifted for the sake of human rights.

However, the discussion has not progressed since.

Kobayashi said that the history of barring women from holy places has even been romanticized in some instances.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs designated the Nyonindo hall as a Japan Heritage site. The hall lies outside a sanctified area on Mount Koyasan in Wakayama Prefecture that women are not allowed to enter.

“Women’s entry into the peak was forbidden up until the latter half of the Meiji Era (1868-1912),” Kobayashi said. “Female visitors had no choice but to offer prayers from a distance outside the prohibited zone.”

Despite that, the Japan Heritage site is labeled as “living with women now to provide comfort to female visitors on a continual basis via transcending and keeping up with the times.”

Kobayashi expressed frustration that the tragic history of women’s exclusion is being used to promote tourism.

DOUBT CAST ON ‘TRADITIONS’

Kobayashi explained that while many aspects of religions cannot be neatly divided into the categories of “sexism” or “tradition,” it is important to examine whether so-called “traditions” have actual religious significance or even a longstanding practice.

Kobayashi pointed to Hadaka Matsuri, the so-called “naked festival,” organized at Owari Okunitamajinja shrine in her home prefecture of Aichi.

In it, men clad only in loincloths scuffle with one another and swarm around a selected holy man. Women were unable to participate.

“The Shinto rite is said to date back more than 1,200 years,” she said. “But actually, the swarming event was reportedly established in the Meiji Era or later.”

Kobayashi referred to the research of Masataka Suzuki, a professor emeritus of cultural anthropology at Keio University, when questioning women’s exclusion from the sumo dohyo, which is considered sacred.

Suzuki detailed various theories, dating to ancient times, about the deity enshrined in the sumo ring.

Kobayashi contended that “after the end of the god departure ceremony on the last day of a tournament, everyone, regardless of sex, should be able to enter the dohyo, because the deities would no longer exist there.”

Kobayashi said that many such "traditions" lack a clear foundation or were created in modern times.

In one particularly memorable case she discovered in her research, a tradition of excluding women was only enforced selectively.

On sacred Mount Ontakesan, which straddles Nagano and Gifu prefectures, most women were barred from approaching the Sannoike crater lake—the most revered place. However, female cargo carriers used to bring divine water from the lake to hikers.

Kobayashi maintained that those cargo carriers were treated as something other than male or female. She described this as part of the “dual discrimination” against both laborers and women.

She also noted that “an apparently longstanding religious taboo was easily ignored due to a secular reason.”

Even on Mount Ominesan, Kobayashi said the forbidden zone was once reduced in size to allow female tree-planting workers and bus guides to enter.

WHO GETS TO DECIDE

When discussing the exclusion of woman from religious places, Kobayashi said she has heard critics insist that “people should go beyond the dichotomy of discrimination or tradition” and that “relevant officials need to hold repeated talks.”

However, she stressed that the right to organize discussions or debates has always been secured by men.

“Men accounted for a considerable portion of academics in religious and folklore studies,” remarked Kobayashi. “There was a deep-rooted biased view that research projects done from a gender perspective were emotional, political or lacked objectivity.”

Kobayashi said that prohibitions against women were built, enhanced, established and retained via androcentrism and other religious beliefs.

While the practice is being reviewed in various places due to the decline of religious organizations and the dilution of faith, Kobayashi said this trend misses the point.

“The ‘subject’—who gets to decide whether to continue banning women or not—is still men,” she said. “Real discussions can’t be held without directly questioning that fact.”

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Born in 1973, Naoko Kobayashi co-authored “Kiso Ontake Shinko to Asia no Hyorei Bunka” (Kiso Ontake worship and Asia’s spirit possession culture) and “Shukyo to Gender no Politics” (Politics of religion and gender) among other publications.