000			02196nam a22001937a 4500
003			OSt
005			20210729114929.0
008			210729b ||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9781479884063
082			_a200.820 AMS
100			_aAmbros, Barbara,
245			_aWomen in Japanese religions.
250			_a11th ed.
260			_aNew York : _bNew York University press, _c2015.
300			_ax, 235 p. : _bill. ; _c22 cm.
504			_aInclude index
520			_aA comprehensive history of women in Japanese religious traditions Scholars have widely acknowledged the persistent ambivalence with which the Japanese religious traditions treat women. Much existing scholarship depicts Japan’s religious traditions as mere means of oppression. But this view raises a question: How have ambivalent and even misogynistic religious discourses on gender still come to inspire devotion and emulation among women? In Women in Japanese Religions, Barbara R. Ambros examines the roles that women have played in the religions of Japan. An important corrective to more common male-centered narratives of Japanese religious history, this text presents a synthetic long view of Japanese religions from a distinct angle that has typically been discounted in standard survey accounts of Japanese religions. Drawing on a diverse collection of writings by and about women, Ambros argues that ambivalent religious discourses in Japan have not simply subordinated women but also given them religious resources to pursue their own interests and agendas. Comprising nine chapters organized chronologically, the book begins with the archeological evidence of fertility cults and the early shamanic ruler Himiko in prehistoric Japan and ends with an examination of the influence of feminism and demographic changes on religious practices during the “lost decades” of the post-1990 era. By viewing Japanese religious history through the eyes of women, Women in Japanese Religions presents a new narrative that offers strikingly different vistas of Japan’s pluralistic traditions than the received accounts that foreground male religious figures and male-dominated institutions.
942			_2ddc _cGL
999			_c7217 _d7217