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Reinterpreting the History of Women'sJudo in JapanBianca Miarka a , Juliana Bastos Marques b & Emerson Franchini aa University of São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazilb Federal University of Rio de Janeiro State, Rio de Janeiro, BrazilPublished online: 19 Apr 2011.

To cite this article: Bianca Miarka , Juliana Bastos Marques & Emerson Franchini (2011):Reinterpreting the History of Women's Judo in Japan, The International Journal of the History ofSport, 28:7, 1016-1029

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Reinterpreting the History of Women’s Judo in Japan

Bianca Miarkaa*, Juliana Bastos Marquesb and Emerson Franchinia

aUniversity of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil; bFederal University of Rio de Janeiro State, Rio deJaneiro, Brazil

This paper reassesses the role of women in judo in Japan, from its secluded andrestricted beginnings in the late nineteenth century to the gradual changes ingender and social paradigms triggered by the influence of Western feministstruggle from the 1960s onwards. Judo has been considered in theory an inclusivemartial art because its creator, Jigoro Kano, stressed safety, etiquette and moralteachings irrespective of age, size or gender of its adherents. However, the socialand cultural environment in Japan has traditionally discriminated against womenboth outside and inside the dojo (training place). We treat this issue historically,considering the broader context of the Japanese social, political and culturaldevelopments.

Keywords: judo; Japan; women; martial arts; Jigoro Kano; Keiko Fukuda

The history of women’s judo in Japan has not been treated with the attention itdeserves, coming from an admittedly male-oriented martial art/sport and socialenvironment. The subject is conspicuously absent even in the four main areas whereit should be relevant: judo studies, sport studies in general, feminist and genderstudies and the history of modern Japan. While neither historians of Japan norfeminists are usually involved in the details of judo, sport historians and sociologistsalso tend to ignore the subject. In the case of judo studies, authors have so far lackedadequate methodological rigour to read sources and interpret the broader historicalprocesses involved in the development of women’s judo. Indeed, the only availablesources are mostly primary, including magazine articles, private letters and oraltestimonies, with hardly any systematic analysis so far.1

This study is an initial attempt to bring this issue to the forefront of thesedisciplines, insisting that the history of women in judo can contribute to the broaderunderstanding of historical processes of gender exclusion in sport, and enhance ourunderstanding of how Western culture and values were received in the changingJapanese society of the Meiji and Taisho eras.

A very straightforward question offers an interesting departure point: whetherthere is a special practice as ‘women’s judo’ or whether there is just judo, whichwomen also happen to practice? In other words, how much of a specific issue hasbeen the participation of women in judo, and how much is there a need to adapt judoto women’s requirements and expectations in relation to men’s? We intend to

*Corresponding author. Email: miarkasport@hotmail.com

The International Journal of the History of Sport

Vol. 28, No. 7, May 2011, 1016–1029

ISSN 0952-3367 print/ISSN 1743-9035 online

� 2011 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/09523367.2011.563633

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propose some possible answers, framing the discussion on the historical process ofcreation and development of judo since the establishment of the Kodokan school inJapan in the late nineteenth century, through the expansion of judo practice and assport around the world in the twentieth century.

The most obvious response to this question is that there is no difference betweenjudo for men and for women because the definition of judo itself shows that anyonecan learn it, be they male or female, old or young, and so on. The two underlyingbasic principles of judo advocated by Kano were ‘maximum efficiency’ (seiryokuzenyo) and ‘mutual benefit’ (jita kyoei), to be achieved both through the training oftechniques on the mat and through a broader, morally upward, attitude towards lifeand society.2 Although later set aside by many judo practitioners throughout theworld, this educational and philosophical aspect of judo was constantly emphasisedby Kano in his lectures and writings. Towards the end of his life, he increasinglyformulated and perfected the philosophical goals of judo as a ‘gentle way’ (which isthe literal meaning of the word, ju-do) to promote the development of the self and ofsociety as a whole, as the ultimate goal of self-perfection that would start with thephysical aspect of the martial art.3 In addition, in the arrangement of the Kodokanjudo syllabus, the collection of techniques used for randori (free practice), shiai(combat) and kata (the study of forms), reveals no fixed distinction between itspractice by men and women.4 Therefore, considering the proper definition of judo,making a distinction between judo for men and judo for women would becontradictory.

However, evidence shows that this was not the case. Historically judo practisedby men and by women has been clearly distinguished since its start, and only the lastdecades have seen a levelling of opportunities and recognition for women. As werecall the development of Kodokan judo from 1882 onwards, we shall notice aparadoxical situation: the inclusion and participation of Japanese women in judopractice was slow, late and restricted because it was undermined by culturalpreconceptions of women as fragile, gentle and submissive, and whose ultimate goalshould be motherhood. However, at the same time, the fact that at least some fewwomen were involved in the practice of judo at all at the dawn of the twentiethcentury in Japan was a breakthrough from the restrictive role played by women inJapanese society at the time.5 However, this breakthrough soon came to a standstill,given the fact that women were not allowed to practice in more ways than thealready permitted, namely in competitions and hard randori practice.6 It took theinfluence of the Western feminist movement of the late 1960s and 1970s to releaseJapanese and all international female judokas from their learning and trainingconstraints, so that they could also practice randori and shiai at the same level astheir male counterparts.7

There is a strong misconception in the Western world about the cultural andeducational roles of men and women throughout Japanese history. The beliefremains that proper education for women includes the knowledge of the mild arts oftea ceremony, poetry and ikebana (the Japanese art of flower arrangement), whilemen must be engaged in the mastering of all different hard and virile martial arts. Infact, the conception of the proper mastery of fine arts by the Japanese elite did notfollow these standards at first , as we shall see below. In addition, the works of thetwo great Japanese female writers of the Heian period (eleventh century), SeiShonagon and Murasaki Shikibu, are usually cited as proof of the leading culturalstatus of women in Japanese history, but we must take into account the fact that they

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wrote in Japanese, which indicates their subordinate level in society at the time. Menwould also write fiction and poetry, but mostly in Chinese8 – in the same manner asthe well-educated men in tsarist Russia would prefer to write in French. On the otherhand, the appearance of flower arrangement as a form of art in the fifteenth andsixteenth centuries was at first an exclusively male endeavour, embodied withreligious, Buddhist overtones, in the same vein as the tea ceremony. It was only in thenineteenth century that these arts started to be associated exclusively with women.9

In fact, traditional Japanese arts have much in common with many aspects ofjudo. One of their underlying principles, if not the main one, is the emphasis onform, a word that roughly translates the Japanese term kata. The mastery of formthrough ikebana, the tea ceremony or calligraphy, arts that require long years ofstudy and practice, is not exactly an end in itself, but rather a way to perfect one’sspirit, for it requires focus, concentration and control of body and soul. Buddhism,especially in its Zen form, places a big emphasis on this principle, and its uniqueblend with the national Shinto religion from the eleventh century until 1870, whenthey were officially separated for political reasons,10 is a strong influence on thecultural environment in which Jigoro Kano compiled the principles of judo.

The history of women’s participation in martial arts does not start with judo.Although they originated in the practical knowledge displayed in war, Japanesemartial arts started to become systematised and stripped out of their practicalcomponent only in the Tokugawa period (seventeenth to mid-nineteenth century),when internal and external peace and stability gradually replaced the actualapplication of weaponry and fighting methods in war. The arts practised by menincluded the mastery of weapons, such as swordsmanship, the bow, the spear, gunsand knives, and the study of non-armed fight in closed quarters, this under thegeneric denomination of jujutsu. However, mastery of the dagger was considered afemale endeavour, undoubtedly because it was related to the domestic environment,in opposition to battlefield weapons. In the same vein, the naginata, a pole weaponconsisting of a wooden shaft and a curved blade on top, was an acceptable pastimefor elite samurai women as well.11 There is scant evidence that some few women alsostudied jujutsu techniques, but this would take place only in confined environmentsand with guidance and supervision from fathers who were usually also jujutsumasters. Since in the nineteenth century the practice of jujutsu (a Japanese system ofunarmed combat and physical training) was exclusively confined to the study of thesafer kata, the originally male aspect of fighting could be indeed toned down for asporadic female practice.12

The inclusion of women in judo by Jigoro Kano should be considered within thisbackground of limited access of Japanese women to martial arts until the nineteenthcentury. For some authors, mostly the ones concerned with the history of judo, thefact that Kano opened his school for women is viewed as a breakthrough, aninnovative policy from a man ahead of his time.13 A feminist point of view, on theother hand, would regard that inclusion as restrictive and conservative, becausewomen were not supposed to have the same kind of training as men. In order toverify how much this was innovative or conservative, we must first understand howKano’s social background matched the ideas about the place of women in Japanesesociety of the late Meiji era, and afterwards.

Firstly, let us look at the social status of Japanese women and thetransformations it underwent in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.The western idea of the ‘proper’ role of women in society as exemplary wife, mother

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and caretaker of the house14 has no equivalent to the expected role of marriedwomen in the Tokugawa years. As well as in the West, aristocratic families wouldinclude a large number of servants and maids, and the raising of children was notconsidered an important attribute for elite women. However, the emphasis wasinstead on the submissive behaviour of newly married women to their new family,such as it had been in her family before: they were supposed to act passively, withunquestioned obedience and reverence to their husband, never displaying any signsof discontent or frivolousness.15

The social changes promoted by the Meiji years and the new emphasis on themodernisation of Japan also sought to change this, by ‘Westernising’ the ideal role ofwomen. The 1873 decree requiring both male and female children to attend primaryschool was an important step. This process would at first struggle with acceptance inthe society, as normallyhappens when states try to change ingrained social structuresand costumes overnight. Indeed, it took many decades until girls were allowed toattend high schools (a law from 1898 required one girls’ high school for eachprefecture) and universities, let alone reducing the gaps between elite groups and thestill majority of peasants. However, with the rapid industrialisation, there alsofollowed an ever- increasing demand for factory workers, and underpaid countrygirls were the perfect workforce for the textile industry. In one way or another,women were slowly expanding their presence in Japanese society, apart from thetraditional roles of doing the housework and taking care of the family.16

Still, the Japanese state sought to control every step for the formation of this newsociety, and in the case of women, the intended policy was named ‘Good Wife, WiseMother’ (ryosai kenbo). Following the then current and scientifically approvedWestern concepts of health and modernisation, the ideal Japanese woman wouldneed to prepare herself to bear healthy children, the future of the nation. At the sametime, like her husband in his office, she would need to learn how to administer thehouse.17 The western ‘domestic science’ was included in the educational curriculumfor women, who, as we saw, were now finally allowed to receive formal, institutionaleducation, and all government levels actively promoted this new policy. In this view,physical education would also be fundamental to women, since they were required tocultivate a healthy, sanitised and morally upward living standard, in order tostrengthen their bodies and improve their health to meet the new expectations ofmotherhood.18 This new trend in the role of women in Japanese society reveals oneside of the same patriotic modernisation path that also paved the way for JigoroKano’s judo, also based on Western, scientific models.19

Before the Meiji restoration, the Tokugawa period was a time of rigid socialstructure, and power laid in the hands of a line of military commanders, the shoguns,who controlled and subordinated local lords, the daimyo, and took precedence overthe power of the emperor. Japanese feudal society was strictly divided into fourgroups, shi-no-ko-sho, the samurai, the farmer, the artisan and the merchant.Although the downfall of the shogunate and the Meiji revolution abolished theseformal distinctions, they remained entrenched in society for a long time. Themerchant category was predominantly urban, and because of their activity, came tobe in close contact with Western visitors after the reopening of the ports, in 1854.20

Jigoro Kano came from this merchant, urban background, being the son of abusinessman who sold naval and shipping supplies. Also, his father had married thedaughter of a sake brewery owner in the district of Nada (today eastern Kobe, in theHyogo Prefecture).21

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This urban merchant class was the main group that replaced the samurai as thebureaucracy of the new Meiji state, vigorously promoting the Westernisation of thecountry and acting as its frontrunner. Knowledge of Western ways and the Englishlanguage now counted much more than local authority and control of lands as thepathway to a government career, and Jigoro Kano is a perfect example of this trend.After his mother died, his father moved to Tokyo, where Kano attended privateschools with an emphasis on learning English and German, and a Westernisedcurriculum model. After entering Tokyo Imperial University in 1878, he was closelyacquainted with the current Western scientific methods advocated for pedagogy andphysical education. He ascended fast in his professional career, becoming head of theGakushuin School for the children of the Japanese aristocracy in 1882, soon takingthe position of head of the Tokyo’s Teachers’ Training College. He was alsoappointed as director of primary education at the Ministry of Education, in 1899,thereby helping to establish the core programme for physical education in Japaneseschools in the next few years.22

Kano’s ideas about judo and education were in tone with the strong trend ofWesternisation of the Meiji period.23 The scientific imprint of Western studies inphysiology and dynamics influenced both his creation of a canon of techniquesadopted from traditional jujutsu and a more encompassing model of physicaleducation, as his writings constantly emphasised. The founding of his own school fora new, scientific and rationalised (in that sense, Westernised) form of jujutsu, theKodokan judo, took place while he was still young, at 21 years old24, and it tooksome more years for him to compile his whole training system. The first years werethose of experimentation, in the sense that judo was still one of many jujutsu fightingschools, struggling to find recognition for its effectiveness.25 While his small group ofstudents competed against older jujutsu schools for the supremacy of their fightingsystem, including the semi-legendary bouts at the Tokyo Police Academy, Kanocontinued studying in order to improve his judo techniques and generalphilosophical goals.

The place of women in this process was limited in the first years. Kano seemed atfirst unsure whether it would be appropriate for women to practise judo or not. Hisdoubts seem to have been based on Western medical ideas of the time about womenand physical activity. According to these, compiled in the first half of the nineteenthcentury in the West, the ideal female body was expected to be fragile to the point ofalmost illness.26 However, the second part of the century witnessed a growinginterest in a medical, ‘scientific’ evaluation of the female body, together with thegrowth of a new cult of athleticism and the development of the first gymnasticssystems. Social Darwinism also played a role in this process, helping to create thedemands of a healthy female body, suitable, as we saw, for bearing strong children -meaning mainly boys, the future soldiers of the nation.27 These ‘scientific’ studiescreated myths about the female body that are accepted even today as common sense,mostly affirming that the female body is too fragile for heavy exercises and injuries,which could affect internal reproductive organs and ultimately make women unableto have children.

Early on, Kano consulted physicians about the suitability of judo exercises forwomen, only starting to teach them after making sure that falls, ukemi, would not beharmful to females. He therefore decided that only light exercises and the slow andharmless study of kata should be appropriate to women, observing strict rules ofetiquette, and that mixed practice with men should not occur.28

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The idea of women being physically fragile and weak, thus unable to practisejudocompletely, persisted in Japan for many decades, as well as in the West, andstrongly hindered the beginning of female participation in competitions. Anotherreason for this prohibition was the aesthetic factor, which from ancient times hasprevented women releasing themselves from prejudiced body constraints. The primerole of aesthetic beauty demanded by men for female sports has clashed directly withthe requirements of the full practice of judo, since it is primarily a combat system.29

The first female judo student seems to have been Sueko Ashiya, arranged byappointment in 1893, therefore 11years after the establishment of Kodokan. She andall the following female students, including Kano’s wife, Sumako, would learn judoin private, at Kano’s house. The then current concerns with female health are explicitin the story of another student, Kinko Yasuda, who had ill health while young, butallegedly became sturdy and healthy with judo practice.30 The purpose of judo forJapanese women was therefore very clear for the very few who joined private lessonsat Kano’s secluded and informal class. First, it served as a smooth physical activitythat would strengthen would-be mothers, by not being harmful to reproductiveorgans, while also being appropriate in terms of decorum and etiquette. Second, judoknowledge for women worked only for hypothetical situations of self-defence, whichbecomes evident by the strong and almost exclusive emphasis on the teaching ofkatas.

The growth of men’s judo was very fast, with the numbers of practitioners soonreaching tens of thousands by the beginning of the twentieth century, both in Tokyoand in other cities in Japan. However, it was only in 1923, therefore 41 years after theestablishment of Kodokan, that the women’s section was created and a female dojowas provided at the central judo school, albeit informally, under the supervision of amale instructor, Ariya Honda. It took three more years and a special clinic for theformation of instructors to teach judo for women, mostly katas and etiquette, for theofficial opening of the women’s section (joshi bu) to take place. With a much smallersized dojo and no explicit and widespread public incentive for women to take upjudo, the number of practitioners remained small. This is revealed by another longwait for the next step in the official recognition of the joshi bu: the Enrolment OathBook for women was opened only in 1931, containing a softer version of the men’soath. Only three names are known: Noritomi, Akutagawa and Yasuko Morioka.The first female black belt, Katsuko Osaki, is credited to have received herpromotion in 1933.31

The training, promotions and requirements for the female black belt weredifferent from men’s as well. Since no heavy randori or competitions were allowed,women were expected to attain a higher level of perfection on the katas than men.Ground techniques, chokes and arm locks were also not permitted, because theywere not considered appropriate for a woman’s decorum and feminine behaviour.The dan level, or a black belt rank, was distinguished also by the use of a belt with awhite stripe in the middle. The official male discourse to justify the white stripesought to present women’s judo as more ‘pure’,32 which was also harder to learnbecause of the higher level of kata knowledge that was expected of women. The factremains that women’s judo in Japan was undoubtedly a more restricted, lighter formof judo, toned down in its commitment to match the expected role of women insociety. The history of the use of the white-striped belt in Japan is an anthropologicalissue in itself, reflecting the perseverance of a male-centred version of judo that iscurrent still today. It creates gender boundaries in knowledge and practice, and

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reinforces the idea that women’s judo should not be equal to the full, male version ofjudo. When we study the development of judo in the West, it is clear that theresistance to the use of the white-striped belt is a reflection of the whole struggle forthe inclusion of women in the full practice of judo, especially in competitions thatstarted at the height of the feminist movement in the late 1960s and 1970s.33

There are very few known documents on the history of women’s judo in pre-warJapan, a situation that calls for further research in the archives at the Kodokan andlocal judo clubs. Consequently, we have to analyse the currently available evidenceas thoroughly as possible. One very interesting and rich source for the period is theset of letters written by British judo student Sarah Mayer to her sensei (teacher),Genji Koizumi, during her two-year trip to Japan, between 1934 and 1935.34

Koizumi was the head of Budokwai club in London, where Mayer had just startedher training. Although we do not have Koizumi’s reply letters, and Mayer’s view wasa typically biased account of the strangeness of Japanese costumes for the Britishvisitor at the time, some of her remarks reveal a bit of the prejudices andpreconceived roles of Japanese judo training for men and for women.

Sarah Mayer had two of the most important requirements for living a relativelyfree, unrestricted life as a British married woman in the liberal 1930s: she was rich,having married the son of a diamond dealer, and was an actress and a writer.35 Herletters reveal a very independent and strong personality, which quite soon manifesteditself upon her arrival in Japan through her training in men’s dojos in some cities.Arriving first at Kobe (incidentally, Kano’s home town), her first experiences in judoclasses show a clearly disdainful attitude from men. Two instances of treatmentwould usually occur while she was practising: firstly a condescending attitude,treating her like a ‘delicate piece of porcelain’, and afterwards, as soon as the menrealised she would be willing to practise a full, unrestricted randori, came adeliberately harsher approach. Commenting on the attitude of her judo instructor,Mr Yamamoto, Mayer says:

He seemed rather astonished and embarrassed that I was not averse to ground work andtold me through an interpreter that it was because I was a woman and he thought Ishould object to it for that reason. I told him that I did not consider myself to have anysex when I was doing judo so he took heart and sat on me for a time until I began torepent of my rashness, and now he shows me no mercy.36

The story is revealing of the expected restrictions of women regarding groundcombat, as well as the explicit challenge in sexual roles because of the taboo of bodycontact between a man and a woman in a social context. By stating that sheconsidered her gender identity irrelevant to judo practice, she not only started to betreated by the instructor in a rougher manner, like other men, but also punished forchallenging the mandatory gender roles and separation in practice. This situationrepeats itself in every dojo she visits from then on, with her continuously being thevictim of more expressions of scorn. When asked to practise groundwork with a malepartner, she recalls: ‘However I did everything that I could think of and the Professorand the others just sat down and laughed and laughed’.37

It seems that she was gradually accepted in men’s classes, and by the time shewent to the Kodokan in Tokyo and met Jigoro Kano, she was accepted as adistinctive exception to the established norms. Her view of the women’s class at thejoshi bu shows how her training was unusual for a woman: ‘The girls are altogethertoo polite to each other. They never try to avoid any throw, but just take it in turns

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to drop each other gently on the mat’.38 One can wonder why she was allowed topractise judo in the same way as men, but it seems clear that a very important matterof distinction was the fact that she was not Japanese. A liberal Western woman wasno concern for the education of Japanese society and patriotic moral models; in fact,it seems it was better not to mix her with the Japanese female judokas (judo experts).While in other cities she made no mention of women learning judo, it seems that inTokyo the standard restrictions applied. Adding to the fact that she did not want topractice in the restricted joshi bu, Jigoro Kano himself considered she should practisewith men: ‘. . .Professor Kano would not hear of my being banished to the woman’sdepartment and gave orders that I should be admitted to the men’s dojo topractice’.39 Afterwards, she joined the kangeiko, the harsh winter training sessions inthe early mornings for men only, and came to be seen as ‘one of the boys’: ‘TheGreat Men either slap me heartily on the back or cuff me as if I were a small boy . . .’.

Sarah Mayer was promoted to a black belt in 1935, and her dan grade isacknowledged as the first awarded for a foreign woman. There is a picture of herwearing judogi and her black belt, in which she is posed in a very unusual way for awoman in Japan, wearing short hair, seated with crossed legs and with her fist underthe chin, showing a masculine tone of assertiveness. The picture belongs to a serieswhere she also wears a traditional Japanese kimono in a polite standing pose. Whatis most striking in it is that the belt she wears has no white stripe in the middle, nodoubt indicating that her degree and training was recognised as equivalent tomen’s.40

As for Japanese women who took judo at this same time, their enrolment in thepractice implied not only a life of stricter training, but also meant ultimatelychoosing between perfecting themselves over the years in judo or marrying andraising children. Both paths would be considered impossible to merge. The Taishoera may have witnessed the appearance of feminist thinkers, activists, publicationsand associations,41 but there’s no evidence that they influenced the very conservativeenvironment of judo clubs.

Keiko Fukuda, the highest ranked woman ever in judo, born in 1913 andcurrently holding a 9th dan, is the best example of this traditional and contradictoryJapanese behaviour towards women judokas. The last living student of Jigoro Kanoat the beginning of the twenty-first century, Sensei Fukuda is widely respected inJapan and all over the world for her knowledge of kata – especially the Ju no Kata,the ‘kata of gentleness’. She is also widely acknowledged for her emphasis on thestudy of the philosophical and spiritual side of judo, having been awarded byEmperor Akihito with the title of National Living Treasure of Japan in 1990.42

Because she was the granddaughter of Kano’s first jujutsu teacher, HachinosukeFukuda, she was personally invited by Kano to join the joshi bu in 1934, after thecelebration of the 50th anniversary of the foundation of Kodokan and theinauguration of its new and spacious building in Tokyo. In her book on judo, Bornfor the Mat, published in 1973, she mentions the role she was expected to play:

My mother and brother both supported me, although my uncle opposed the ideabecause I was a woman. My mother’s and my brother’s thoughts were for me to learn,and get married to a Judoka a judo expert) someday, but not to become a Judokamyself.43

As she chose the latter option, this meant that she would never marry at all, astate to which she acquiesced.

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Because she could understand some English and was proficient enough to teachjudo, Keiko Fukuda was asked by Jigoro Kano to travel abroad and spread thepractice of judo to other countries, in the same way as many other male studentsfrom Kodokan would do in the first half of the twentieth century. However, it wasonly 15 years after Kano’s sudden death, in 1938, that Fukuda finally travelled to theUSA to teach judo, mostly demonstrating kata in exhibitions. By the time she wentthere again for another teaching visit, in 1966, she held a 5th dan, beyond which shewas not to be promoted for 30 years: ‘The Kodokan was old-fashioned and sexistabout belt ranks. They just decided women didn’t need any rank over 5th degree’.44

In the same year, she decided to immigrate to the USA, having established herself inSan Francisco, where she has been continuously teaching judo even in her old age.Her struggle for recognition went through many failures over the next decades, andit was only in 2006, at 93 years old, that she was finally awarded the red belt for the9th degree at Kodokan, after having received the same recognition previously fromthe USA Judo Federation.

Despite having lived in the West since the 1960s and witnessed from then on thestruggle for the inclusion of women in championships, she remained an adherent ofthe traditional view of women’s judo, focusing on the practice of katas and lightrandori between women only. She never endorsed the participation of women in shiaiwith the same rules that applied to men, emphasising the role of women judokas(judokates) as the ultimate practitioners of the principle of ju, which is roughlytranslatable as ‘gentle, soft, flexible, and adaptable’. Indeed, this can be recalled asone original meaning of the judo intended by Jigoro Kano, which is why he wasoften quoted as saying ‘If you really want to know true judo, take a look at themethods they use at the Kodokan Joshi Bu’.45 However, the traditional and male-dominated values of Japanese society that considered – elite – women as fragile andpassive also reflected in the joshi bu through the importance of etiquette, discretionand aesthetics, much in the same way as Sarah Meyer described. As Fukuda herselfrecalls of her classes in the Kodokan: ‘We were required to comport ourselves withproper manners and refined speech as befitted young ladies of gentility’. In aninterview in 1974, she expressed her view on woman tournaments: ‘. . .I am afraid forwomen, because they will be using men’s rules. Does a bent ear or a broken noselook beautiful on a woman? I don’t think so.’46

The very meaning of judo suffered a radical change in the aftermath of theSecond World War. As part of the occupation policies imposed by the Americanoccupation offices headed by General MacArthur (then known as SCAP – SupremeCommander of the Allied Powers), the teaching of judo and other martial arts wereat first forbidden.47 However, soon the occupation forces were convinced that judoand kendo could be properly taught again, without the militaristic aims thatcharacterised official physical education (PE) curricula until 1945. The ban wasreverted in 1948, although with a crucial change: judo was now to be practised as asport, with a structure similar to Western sports.48 Thus in the same year the All-Japan Judo League was founded, promoting the first All-Japan Judo Champion-ships. From then on, both the national league and the International JudoFederation, founded in 1951, worked for the inclusion of judo as an Olympic sport,which would become part of the plans for the holding of the Olympic Games inJapan.49 This, of course, applied only to men; women in Japan would continue topractice kata and light randori such as before, mostly in private clubs, since officialPE curricula frequently opted for calisthenics and naginata – the pole weapon

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technique from old samurai times. Girls were only allowed to participate in martialarts classes in the school curriculum after following the gender equality trends fromthe West. The Japanese school curriculum had to be reformulated in 1980, afterJapan signed the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms ofDiscrimination against Women, since Article 10 determined that the curricula shouldbe finally equal for boys and girls.50

It also took the actions of Western female judokas from the late 1960s onwards tochange the ban from competitions, since the struggle for recognition of female judochampionships started in Europe and in the USA. At first, as in Japan, western femalejudokas were not allowed to participate in shiai, but unlike in the East practice wasmostly and clearly focused in self-defence techniques – presumably against sexualharassment. The pioneering 1965 book Judo forWomen by Ruth Horan, is primarily acompendium of ‘self-defense moves’; judo, she wrote, ‘strengthens character and at thesame time develops a gentle personality, thus making a woman appear morefeminine.’51 Only after a hard struggle for recognition, which deserves a study on itsown, judokas such as Rusty Kanokogi andDiane Pierce forced the International JudoFederation (IJF) to lift the ban on female shiai in 197452, which very slowly led to equalroles in judo for men and women.

Because of these developments, Japanese coaches and clubs started to workharder during the 1980s for the training of female judokas, in order to maintain theirsupremacy in medals for competitive judo. This applied especially after the officialinclusion of women in Olympic judo, in the Barcelona Games of 1992 – in Seoul, in1988, women’s judo was adopted only as an exhibition sport. The results were indeedfavourable, creating champions such as Ryoko Tamura in the late 90s and in thenext decade. Tamura acquired considerable fame in Japan, inspiring a manga(Japanese comic book) and a television cartoon series about an intrepid youngjudoka and also starring in television commercials, but her public image was neverequivalent to famous male judo champions. She became known as Ryoko Tani afterher marriage with a famous baseball player in 2003 and five years later gave birth toa son, both events being widely published in Japan. These events ultimately reinforcethe traditional role of ‘‘good wife, wise mother’’ from Kano’s time, while para-doxically focusing on the image of a sport idol that would be unthinkable byJapanese standards until a couple of decades ago.53

The issue is not over, and even today there is an ongoing debate as to whetherfemale judo should be on strictly equal terms with male judo, in Japan as in the restof the world. 54 There are still traces of Japanese resistance to changes in the role ofwomen in judo, exemplified by the late promotion of Keiko Fukuda to 9th dan andthe obstacles for women to act as international referees. However, judo itself hasevolved, facing the challenges of universalisation and sportisation in new historicalcontexts. In the same way as there is no such thing as turning back in history, there isno turning back in judo to the days of the foundation of Kodokan. The idea that thejudo practised at the traditional joshi bu is pure judo because it exemplifies its ‘truespirit’ such as envisaged by Jigoro Kano is nowadays a dead end, since it does notrespond to the needs and expectations of contemporary women, in Japan as well asin the West.

Notes on Contributors

Bianca Miarka has an MSc in Physical Education (University of Sao Paulo. Brazil). MartialArts and Combat Sports Research Group – EEFE/USP.

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Juliana Bastos Marques has a PhD in Social History (University of Sao Paulo, Brazil) and isLecturer in Oriental Studies at the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro State (UNIRIO),Brazil. Martial Arts and Combat Sports Research Group – EEFE/USP.

Emerson Franchini has a PhD in Physical Education and is professor in Judo at the Universityof Sao Paulo, Brazil. Martial Arts and Combat Sports Research Group – EEFE/USP.

Notes

1. Examples of research into this area include works by Jansen, and Gluck (historians ofJapan); Hargreaves, Markula, Messner, and Theberge (work on feminist sport studies);and Guttmann, and Phillips (sports history and sociology). For judo studies aboutwomen, the standard references, Svinth, ‘The Evolution of Women’s Judo, 1900–1945’,and Cunningham, ‘Joshi Judo: Origins and Early Years’, are not academic. Studies aboutjudo history, e.g. Carr or Goodger, hardly touch on the subject at all. Books devoted towomen in martial arts, such as Hoppe, Sharp Spear, Crystal Mirror; and Wiley, Womenin the Martial Arts, although interesting compilations of interviews, focus little on issuesof gender and judo. Atkinson, also titled Women in the Martial Arts is a genericintroduction.

2. Kano, Mind over Muscle, 38.3. See Maekawa. ‘Jigoro Kano’s Thoughts on Judo’; and Maekawa and Hasegawa,

‘Studies on Jigoro Kano’.4. Kano, Kodokan Judo.5. Svinth, ‘The Evolution of Women’s Judo, 1900-1945’.6. See Gardner, ‘A Woman’s-Eyes View of Judo’; see also Fukuda, Born For The Mat, 3,

where she also states that makikomi randori techniques (where one ‘rolls into’ theopponent) are too dangerous for women and therefore are also not allowed.

7. Inman, Judo for Women, 11.8. Mason and Caiger, A History of Japan, 82.9. Goldstein-Gidoni, ‘Fashioning Cultural Identity’, 163.10. Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan, 350–4.11. Keiko Fukuda states that her grandmother, as the wife of a samurai, had studied the

naginata. See Hoppe, Sharp Spear, Crystal Mirror, 269.12. Hancock, Physical Training for Women by Japanese Methods, xiii–9.13. Cunningham, ‘‘Joshi Judo’’.14. Hargreaves, Sporting Females, 90.15. Jansen, The Making of Modern Japan, 197–8; cf. 553–5.16. Nolte and Hastings, ‘The Meiji State’s Policy Toward Women, 1890-1910’, 153.17. Gordon, A Modern History of Japan, 111–12; Sand, ‘At Home in the Meiji Period’,

195; Garon, ‘Rethinking Modernization and Modernity in Japanese History: A Focus onState-Society Relations’, 358–62.

18. Hargreaves, Sporting Females, 42–62; Guttmann, Women’s Sports, 96–105.19. Edwards, ‘Theorizing the Cultural Importance of Play’, 284–5; Shun, ‘The Invention of

the Martial Arts’, 164–5.20. Gordon, A Modern History of Japan, 75; Rozman, ‘Social Change’, 499–568.21. Watson, Judo Memoirs of Jigoro Kano, 46.22. Ibid., 58–9.23. For a detailed discussion of the practical and ideological implications of this, see Inoue,

‘The Invention of the Martial Arts’.24. In the traditional Japanese kazoedoshi count, the age of a newborn starts at one, not at

zero as in the west, Kano would therefore count as being 22 years old.25. Kano, ‘Kodokan Judo’, 15–19.26. Guttmann, Women’s Sports, 85–96.27. Hargreaves, Sporting Females, 44–6.28. Cf. Mennesson, ‘Etre une femme dans un sport ‘‘masculin’’ for boxing (and football).29. Cunningham, ‘‘Joshi Judo’’.30. Ibid. See also,Svinth, ‘The Evolution of Women’s Judo, 1900-1945’. Both authors do not

seem to fully acknowledge the slowness of changes, in comparison to men’s judo.

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31. As Keiko Fukuda also stated in an interview for Black Belt magazine. See G. Johnson,‘A Single Reed that Bends gracefully in the Wind’, Black Belt, June 1974, 29–33. The ideaof pure judo as female still holds: ‘In Joshi or Woman’s Judo, persons who hold a blackbelt rank are awarded a special black belt that has a white stripe down the center. Thisbelt is only awarded to a woman. And represents the Pure form of Judo as they do notrely on strength like most men do. However most woman prefer a normal black belt likemen.’ See Southwestern Pennsylvania Judo Club rank requirements, http://www.swpa-judo.com/doclinks/judo%2520ranks.pdf (accessed 2 October, 2010).

32. Issues of the Black Belt magazine from these years are an important source of the debate,especially the letters sections from 1971 to 1972.

33. ‘Letters from Sarah Mayer to Gunji Koizumi’.34. Information on Sarah Meyer’s life is scant apart from her own letters. Cf. Callan and

Spenn, ‘A Fashionable Judo Girl’.35. ‘Letters from Sarah Mayer to Gunji Koizumi’, part I.36. Ibid.37. ‘Letters from Sarah Mayer to Gunji Koizumi’, part III.38. ‘Letters from Sarah Mayer to Gunji Koizumi’, part IV.39. Ibid.40. The picture is available at http://judoinfo.com/mayer.htm (accessed 2 October, 2010).

Mackie. Feminism in Modern Japan.41. Fukuda, Ju no kata, 171.42. K. Sullivan, ‘A Lifetime of Judo’, San Francisco Chronicle, October 17, 2003, http://

judoinfo.com/fukuda.htm (accessed 2 October, 2010).43. From the documentary Be Strong, Be Gentile, Be Beautiful, by Yuriko Gamo Romer

(sample clip available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v¼XHdPh3CEfGM, accessedOctober 2, 2010). English translation transcript obtainedfrom http://shakespearessister.blogspot.com/2009/11/keiko-fukuda-be-strong-be-gentle-be.html (accessed October 2,2010).

44. Hoppe, Sharp Spear, Crystal Mirror, 275.45. Fukuda, Ju no kata, 147.46. G. Johnson. ‘A Single Reed that Bends Gracefully in the Wind’, Black Belt magazine,

June 1974, 30.47. Svinth, ‘Documentation Regarding the Budo Ban in Japan, 1945-1950’.48. Horne, ‘Understanding Sport and Body Culture in Japan’, 79.49. Guttmann and Thompson, Japanese Sports, 178.50. Kameda, ‘Sexism and Gender Stereotyping in Schools’, 112.51. Horan, Judo for Women, 4.52. ‘Why are US Women First in World Judo?’, Black Belt magazine, December 1976, 50.53. Orlansky, ‘Moving Forward’, 81.54. Reguli, ‘Is There a Place for Women in Combat Sports at Olympic Games?’

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