Women as religious leaders in Japan

Thre is a really interesting ENI article on how women played a key leadership role in Japan's religions in the medieaval period.
I've posted more about it to the Women in Ministries blog.

But here's a taster:
"Networking with these women predecessors from the past in their imaginations might empower today's women leaders in their resistance against familial, social, religious, and political misogyny." said Nawata Ward.
"Also, Christian women leaders might carefully find some enriching resources in Japan's Buddhist and Shinto cultural traditions while being critical in assessing what it means to be Christian leaders in a predominantly non-Christian environment," she added.
In writing the book, she became aware that there had been many women leaders who were part of earlier mission movements who created their own ministries.
Nawata Ward added, "I would like to have a network of scholars, researchers and leaders from the ecumenical Church who might be interested in resurrecting these women leaders' stories from Goa, Macao, Manila, China, Vietnam, Brazil, Ethiopia, England, Canada, and perhaps in other places that I have not even imagined during the early modern period and beyond."