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: “Gender Safety as a Community Commitment” by Léa Fae (they/them), USA.
Last year, my martial arts community had a reckoning. A respected and popular sensei within our greater community was accused of sexual misconduct and gender-based harassment. Those accusations raised strong and deep questions: How does this happen? How should our community respond to accusations? What responsibility does the community bear for one member’s actions? How do we prevent…
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The Cancer Carousel (part 1): “Sisu–the immovable heart” by Kirsi Nording Cronsten (Sweden).
Breast cancer is still surrounded by silence. It does not need explanations, causes, or moral narratives – only to be spoken about without shame, speculation, or judgment. This is one story among many. Not a lesson, not a reflection, not a recommendation; only the path I took. On April 11, 2014, I was diagnosed with…
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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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Kate Sylvester Perspectives 