Gendering the Shinto Priesthood in Postwar Japan

Abstract

This dissertation uses archival and ethnographic research to examine how the entrance of women into the Shinto priesthood in 1946 precipitated the formation of a gendered priesthood. Although more than 16% of the priesthood is female as of 2020, the rhetoric espoused by Jinja Honchō (the Association of Shinto Shrines) holds that women and men are essentially different, and therefore casts female priests as subpar substitutes for male priests, whose inclusion in the priesthood is precipitated by demographic crisis and a need for familial continuity. Female priests use strategic gender essentialism to reframe this rhetoric as an argument for their inclusion—due to women’s essential difference from men, a shrine cannot comprehensively cater to its parishioners without the participation of both male and female priests. I argue that Jinja Honchō’s view of gender is homogeneous and based on enduring prewar notions of gender (especially “Good Wife, Wise Mother”), leading to pronouncements about how all women (and therefore all female priests) should behave. This understanding of gender leads Jinja Honchō to restrict women’s participation in the priesthood, through gender-segregated regulations and hiring practices, to dissuade “improper” gender expression. However, female priests’ experience of gender is much more intersectional and contextually grounded, leading to them constructing a type of femininity that is not only particular to priests but also specific to their local shrine context. Rather than agitating for gender equality via collective action, female priests implement individualized solutions to systemic problems, contributing to the gap between Shinto as it is imagined by Jinja Honchō and as it is practiced within shrine communities.