Gender Roles In Japanese Religions

In this essay, I am going to be discussing the topic of genders in Japanese religions. I will be focussing especially on how some Japanese religions discriminate gender. In Japan, it is very common that families affiliate themselves with multiple religions. The most common would be that most practise both Buddhist and Shinto rites. With there being over 128 million of a population in the country, it is understood that over 211 million people had registered for religions in the country. This proves that people do follow multiple religions. This is almost twice the population, which is a very high number. Due to the constitution, under the 1951 Religious Juridical Persons Law, it provides people the opportunity for freedom for religion while …show more content…
Just like a lot of other societies in the world and more so in Japan, the religions (Shinto, Buddhism and Confucianism) have added some amount to the development and maintenance of different roles for both genders in unfair gender inequality. With these religions influencing people to agree with the notion of ethics which announces that people are born with different abilities and therefore are led into different groups within society. By doing this they are serving to keep the current social orders. With this happening, the religions have been able to promote unequal sex roles. This idea, within the context of fatherly social organization, provided to give life to a coloured picture of the arrangement between the two genders and that the view of the female gender was that they are adjuvant to men. An example of this would be, ‘every newly ordained head of a temple in the manual Jushokudo which states, ‘the husband is the lord and the wife is the servant.’’ With women accepting these gender inequality roles, the traditional religions have come under pressure in recent times. In the modern world, men and women are ideally considered equal. Some religions have been criticised by feminists for their role in legitimizing unequal gender relationships with …show more content…
For example, normal cultural patterns make the woman put her family first instead of her professional life. This is a norm in Japan, although you wouldn’t see much of this happening in the west of the world. Asaki Shimoda came to the conclusion that because of the religious beliefs they had, there was no changing form being a housewife to pursuing a profession. This then led to women deciding on whether to become married or not. With marriage comes the financial security but also the burden of being ‘trapped’ within the marriage as they aren’t allowed to go and work due to their responsibilities to the household. But with the single life comes the freedom to be able to go out and work for themselves which creates an independence for them. A lot of debate has gone on down through the years should women be allowed to get married and also work but due to their religion, it goes against their beliefs which many people find unfair. It is even harder for women to be recognized as equal to men in rural areas of Japan. They are known as ‘workers’ and at the same time are not rewarded with anything in the passing away of a relative. An example would be the inheritance of a house or field. The husbands predominately always get this. Ideally in Japan, women are restricted in their abilities in their pursuit of a career. It is limited due to their commitments to the