This platform centres the voices and visibility of women (both trans and cis) and non‑binary practitioners within martial arts and combat sports (MACS). Contributions celebrate those featured while also challenging the dominant norms and mythmaking that sustain inequality and compromise practitioner physical and psychological safety in MACS. The site advocates for more just, inclusive, and accountable MACS communities.
Kate Sylvester
Author | Researcher | Coach | Kendoka
New Publications
Journal Article
Kate Sylvester (2023) Resilience Building Pedagogies and Women’s University Club Sport in Japan, Asian Journal of Sport History & Culture, 2:3, 296-317.
Abstract: Anglophone studies on school club sport (undō bukatsudō 運動部活動) in Japan commonly consider sport as cultural fields that reproduce hegemonic masculinity and ‘traditional’ notions of femininity. This study suggests that school club sport for women in Japan is more diverse and complex than what the dominant symbolic level gender ideological frameworks imply. This article is based on a broader embodied ethnographic project that examines how university club kendo contributes to the construction of women’s identity via member relationships and sport’s cultural learning.
Book
Women and Martial Art in Japan
Kate Sylvester (2023)
This book, based on extensive original research, examines the practice by women in a university sport setting of kendo, the Japanese martial art. The book illustrates an unexplored example of identity construction in Japan, one which legitimises women’s sport experiences within a male-centric physical culture, unpacks the notion of “tradition” in kendo.
Latest Posts
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Guest Essay: “The Honour and Challenge of Refereeing at the First Asia Oceania Kendo Championships” by Noriko Matsumoto (Australia).
Foreword by Kate Sylvester The first Asia Oceania Kendo Championship (AOC) took place at the Tokyo Budokan in Japan May 30-31st 2026 and was organised by the newly formed Asia Oceania Kendo Federation and hosted by the All Japan Kendo Federation and Tokyo Metropolitan Government. It was an excellent opportunity for countries included in the…
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Guest Essay: “Experiences of a Transgender Kendoka” by Natalie Rhodes.
A lot of discussion seems to happen around the topic of transgender women in the martial arts without necessarily spending a whole lot of time listening to our experiences or attempting to empathise with our feelings. So I am going to take this opportunity to voice my thoughts and feelings about kendo practice as a…
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Guest Essay: “Read the Unreadable” by Cedar Ree.
Read the Unreadable By Cedar Ree I would like to invite you to walk with the 21-year-old me out of the dojo after training. Sometimes the sky is dipped in navy blue like a keikogi; sometimes it is dyed by the sunset glow like a colourful tenugui. Feeling the soreness in my muscles, the pain…
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Kate Sylvester Perspectives 