Conclusion

Looking back at my driving question and hypothesis, I'm not sure if I have an answer to the question, and I know that my hypothesis was completely incorrect. I went into this project with almost no knowledge of Shintoism, Buddhism, the role of women in Japan, and their subsequent interconnection, and I think that that's apparent in the question I asked. Through a Western lens, I assumed that two different religions must fundamentally oppose one another in social order and expectation. After doing some research, I now believe that Japanese history is not defined by a battle between two religions, two different options for women. Shintoism and Buddhism in Japan have been shaped around one another; the two are no easy to separate due to centuries of exchanging practices, beliefs, and ideas. As the position of women in one religion changed, so it did in the other, and in Japanese culture as a whole. This was not a cause and effect relationship; it was a push and pull that resulted in practically uniform developments in the position of women, regardless of the religious context.