Women in Japan have been granted permission to participate in the traditional “naked festival” for the first time in its 1,250-year history. However, there will be some modifications to the festival before they will be allowed to participate.
The annual hadaka matsuri also known as the naked man festival is held every February at a Shinto shrine in Inazawa, central Japan. It involves thousands of men dressed minimally to drive away evil spirits for the coming year.
While the festival has historically been off-limits to women, organizers will allow about 40 women to take part on February 22, as reported by Japanese media.
However, these women will be fully clothed and will make ritual offerings of bamboo grass, excluding them from the festival’s climax where men, clad only in fundoshi (traditional loincloth), tabi socks, and hachimaki bandanas, engage in clashes to transfer bad luck to a “chosen man.”
Ayaka Suzuki, who advocated for lifting the unofficial ban on women’s participation, expressed her desire to join the festival since childhood, noting that she could have participated if she were a boy.
The move to include women in traditional festivals comes amid efforts to open up such events to broader participation due to concerns about rural depopulation potentially bringing an end to traditions dominated by local men.
Earlier this month, women participated in the Katsube fire festival in Shiga prefecture for the first time in its 800-year history.
