With the exception of the religion of Okinawa, “all known religions led by women are comprised only of women and/or are considered marginal, subordinate, or secondary in the societies in which they are located” (127). The women in the indigenous religion of Okinawa live without the entrenched sphere of male domination that is present in most religious and government bodies throughout the world. There is an embedded deference for women and “Okinawan women are acknowledged and respected leaders of the publicly funded indigenous religion in which both men and women participate” (127). Sered notes that it has not been an easy road for the culture as a whole throughout this tenure of female religious domination. The culture has in fact been through many political and social changes in which the legitimacy of female religious prominence was never upended. “Women’s female preeminence in Okinawa has endured through a range of political structures and political changes: decentralized villages, warring feudal chiefdoms, a centralized monarchy, occupation by foreign power” (128). It is an imbedded aspect of their culture that has remained unchanged during the long and at times tumultuous history of the
Cited: Peach, Lucinda Joy. "Women and World Religions". New Jersey: Prentice Hall. 2002