This a preview to the article titled ‘Power and Responsibility: Identifying Harrassment within Kendo Hierarchical Relationships’ that was published in Fine Ladies Kendo Worldwide (FLKW) Magazine 2024 Spring Issue Vol. 6 that was just launched.
………The motivation to write this article evolved from the stories that women have shared their experiences of sexism, harassment in kendo and how their experiences have often been silenced or trivialised. I have also learned that those in power can control how complaint processes are handled. Specifically, procedures do not always protect those that complain, nor do the processes necessarily advocate for safe, equitable and inclusive kendo environments. Complaints are often silenced, filed away, and hidden and sadly “when a complaint is filed away or binned or buried, those who complain can end up feeling filed away or binned or buried” (Ahmed, 2021, p. 38). The filing away, binning, and burying, allows behaviour to reoccur or even develop into more serious cases of maltreatment. Complaint procedures could do better to act as spaces of cultural transformation.
The stories I have heard, and my own experiences, suggest that sexism and harassment in kendo is an issue and the way that complaints are sometimes handled is concerning. The incidents and experiences disclose sexist and harassing behaviour enacted by local and visiting male sensei, coaches, referees, and other high-graded officials or federation administrators at kendo seminars, competitions, gradings, kendo parties and, inside and outside of dojo environments…….
The latest volume of Fine Ladies Kendo Worldwide Magazine is brimming with inspiring and interesting interviews as well as insightful and thought provoking articles. Content of the latest issue is listed here.
Interviews (Pioneers of Women’s Kendo)
Sato Atsuko (Japan)
Shikai Yuriko (USA)
Marleen Charng (Taiwan)
Articles
A Cultural Journey of Integration—Japan and the Philippines by Paul Budden
Power and Responsibility: Identifying harassment within kendo hierarchical relationships by Kate Sylvester
Points on Training for Dan Grade Examinations by All Japan Kendo Federation Women’s Committee
8th dan Kyoto Examination 2023 by Kanda Manami
Kendo at The World Combat Games 2023 by Robin Jakuen
Women Aki Taikai by Kate Sylvester
Women’s Kendo Events across the Globe 2023
‘Motherly Love’ Solveig Malmkvist (1932 – 2023) by Hans Lundberg
Thinking Outside of the Box by Koizumi Mizuho
Kate Sylvester Perspectives 