Adversity, acceptance, and accomplishment: female athletes in Japan's modern sportsworld

Abstract

In Japan as elsewhere, sport is strongly coded as a masculine field. Nonetheless, women have long played sports at elite and popular levels despite considerable, continuing disadvantages in material resources, media attention and ideological support. I propose four reasons for the surprising profile of Japanese sporting women over the past century. Japan has long placed importance on its success in the Olympic Games; as the Games were opened up to female events, national ambition motivated Japan to improve opportunities for elite female athletes and celebrate their success. A second factor is extensive corporate sponsorship of a range of individual and team sports at elite levels for both male and female employees, which opened up opportunities to women for intensive training and national and even international participation. Moreover, sporting accomplishment more generally in Japan has foregrounded trained effort and focused on commitment rather than ‘natural’ ability or brute strength. And mainstream notions of Japanese personhood are sociocentric, not individuated. Sociality is as much a norm of masculine conduct as of feminine conduct, and gender dichotomies are more relational than absolute. Together, these factors offer a compelling rationale for female sporting performance in Japan's modern century and some optimism for further gains in the future.

Keywords:

• Japan
• sports
• gender
• women
• Olympics