Japan
'It's exhilarating': Japan's female sumo wrestlers take on sexism
Amateur wrestlers hope ban on women in the professional arena will one day be overturned
Justin McCurry in Gifu Mon 18 Jun 2018 20.04 EDT Last modified on Mon 18 Jun 2018 23.51 EDT
Eight of the current nine members of the Asahi University women sumo team pose for a group photo by the Dohyo Photograph: Laura Liverani for the Guardian
It isn’t hard to see why Chisaki Okumura is one of Japan’s best female sumo wrestlers. Combining her considerable height and heft with flashes of speed, her practice bouts end with a succession of opponents thrown to the ground or shoved unceremoniously out of the ring.
On a humid, wet afternoon in central Japan, Okumura draws on her reserves of strength for a final, punishing series of drills with a male opponent. By the end, it is hard to tell who is more exhausted.
For more than two hours every weekday afternoon, the 17 men and nine women of Asahi University’s sumo club stretch, warm up and perform drills together, although for safety reasons they conduct full-on bouts separately.
Training is centered on two dohyo – a dirt-covered 4.55m diameter circle marked out with half-buried rice-straw bales - which are among the few places where female sumo wrestlers are defying the centuries-old sport’s uneasy relationship with gender.
Pic=A female and a male member of the Asahi University sumo team practice against each other during their daily training. Photograph: Laura Liverani for the
As amateurs, the women athletes at Asahi and other universities are not bound by the ancient traditions governing professional sumo - in which only men can compete. But that might not be the case for much longer.
Many hope the ban on women joining the professional sumo ranks will one day be overturned, proving that deep-seated misogyny has no place in a sport striving to be accepted as an Olympic event.
In April, not long after professional sumo was rocked again by allegations of bullying and violence, an incident at an exhibition tournament in Maizuru, near Kyoto, triggered a new campaign to rid Japan’s de facto national sport of its sexist traditions.
The row was triggered by after several women, including at least one nurse, rushed on to the ring to administer first aid to the local mayor, who had collapsed after suffering a stroke. Using the public address system, the referee repeatedly ordered them to leave the ring, but the women refused.
Officials sprinkled “purifying” salt on the wrestling surface after they had left. Sumo officials later denied that this had been done because of the women’s presence in the ring. Salt is customarily scattered on the ring before bouts and after a wrestler has been injured.
The impromptu first responders had fallen foul of an ancient rule banning women from entering, or even touching, the dohyo.
The rule has prevented local female politicians from presenting awards inside the ring.
The Maizuru incident not only embarrassed sumo but was also seen as a metaphor for the treatment of women in Japan, which performs poorly in global tables of gender equality and female political representation.
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