This panel addresses women's leadership in Japanese new religious movements (NRMs), an understudied intersection that challenges three persistent biases in religious studies: androcentrism, antiquity bias, and preference for established religions. Three papers examine women leaders across different historical periods and explore how women navigate leadership in traditionally male-dominated religious spheres. The first paper investigates Itō Asako of Muga No Ai, examining connections between her religious leadership and feminist politics. The second analyzes media representations of Okano Kimiko, founder of Kōdō Kyōdan, whose neutral-to-positive portrayal contrasts typical negative depictions of female NRM leaders. The third presents case studies of Shinsō Itō (Shinnyo-en) and Kōshō Niwano (Risshō Kōseikai), examining how they balance tradition and innovation in their leadership approaches. By positioning these women within concentric circles of personal religious experience, family dynamics, and societal engagement, the panel offers fresh perspectives on religious authority, leadership strategies, and gender in modern Japanese religion.
The Muga No Ai (Selfless Love) movement, founded in Tokyo in 1905 by one-time Jōdo Shin Buddhist priest Itō Shōshin, blended teachings of Buddhism, Christianity, and Tolstoyan spirituality. While Shōshin’s life and thought have been well-studied, the remarkable lifestory of his wife, Itō Asako (1881-1956), remains largely unknown. As a child, Asako lost much of her hair due to alopecia areata. Social pressures led her to feel ashamed and live as a shut-in. Muga No Ai teachings emboldened her to take on a new persona, engage in religious training, wed Shōshin, and become a religious leader. She also became active in feminist politics, and her feminism influenced how she practiced her religious ideal of “selfless love,” most notably in the scandal of a public love affair with a younger man. Through a study of Itō Asako’s career, this paper will investigate the connections between religious liberation and political liberation.
This paper examines the public images of Okano Kimiko, the female founder of Kōdō Kyōdan—a lay Buddhist organization established in 1936 that is also categorized as a New Religious Movement—to explore how it positioned itself within the postwar Japanese religious landscape. While mass media have largely portrayed New Religious Movements and their female founders in a negative light since their emergence, the postwar media representations of Okano Kimiko and Kōdō Kyōdan present an anomaly, as they received neutral and even positive recognition. Through historical analysis of national, regional, and organizational print media, this paper argues that Okano Kimiko’s increasingly respectable media presence was shaped by the Kōdō Kyōdan leadership’s strategic relationships with social, political, and religious actors, which facilitated the organization’s integration into the traditional Buddhist community. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of the agency of New Religious Movements in shaping their public images.
This research examines women's leadership in Japanese new Buddhist movements through case studies of Shinsō Itō (1942-) of Shinnyo-en and Kōshō Niwano (1968-) of Risshō Kōseikai. As daughter and granddaughter of their organizations' founders respectively, these women navigate the intersection of gender, lineage, and religious authority in traditionally male-dominated contexts. Through textual analysis of their published works and organizational materials, the study explores how they understand their leadership roles, how familial succession influences their approaches, and how gender shapes their leadership expression. Initial findings reveal that while both emphasize continuity as "torchbearers," they differ in addressing gender: Niwano reinforces traditional norms through family themes, while Itō explicitly frames her female leadership as reflecting societal change and her parents' inclusive vision. This research addresses significant gaps in Japanese Religious Studies by simultaneously examining women's contributions and new religious movements, offering fresh perspectives on evolving organizational leadership within contemporary Japanese Buddhism.
| Jessica Starling | jessie.starling@gmail.com | View |