Japan’s sacred sumo ring is off-limits to women, even its new prime minister

Women aren’t permitted to enter the sumo ring. Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s first female leader, did not present the Prime ...

Rigid gender roles are prompting women to leave rural Japan

Akita Prefecture has Japan's most aged population, lowest birthrate and fastest declining population. Rigid gender roles are ...

Japan's first female leader faces a taboo over entering the male-only sumo ring

Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi has broken the glass ceiling to become Japan's first female leader. She may soon face ...
The Economist

Japanese women are wrestling with sumo’s boundaries

A version of this scene repeated itself all day in Kyoto last month as 300 wrestlers went at it in bout after bout. This was ...

Producer Kanata Okajima on Giving ‘200 Percent' to Creating Music that ‘Offers a Bit of Comfort': Billboard Japan Women in Music Interview

The creative talks about what it means to be a woman working in Japan's music industry today & the hopes she carries for the ...

Japanese 'muscle girls' challenge conventional beauty standards

With its challenge to Japan’s conventional ideals of feminine beauty, the bar, which opened in mid-2020, draws about 100 customers on average each day, the majority of them foreign tourists, and has ...