Position of Women After Buddhism's Introduction

Despite the misleading title, I've actually found in my research that Buddhism's introduction was not a huge turning point for the position of women in Japan. In the centuries immediately following the Buddhism's arrival at the imperial court in 522, women continued to enjoy political power. From 592 to 792, six different empresses held the throne, ruling for a combined total of 113 years (Lebra-Chapman). For example, Empress Jito ruled officially for ten years when her husband Emperor Temmu died in 686, and continued to rule through her grandson until her death in 702 (Kitagawa).
Correspondent to the (still often shamanic) female empresses, Buddhist nuns were given power and freedom during this time period. In 584, the first temple for Buddhist nuns was built, twenty years before a temple was built for monks. The nuns selected to live in this temple were expected to have the same shamanic charisma of Himiko and the many other legendary women rulers. However, discrimination against nuns began to crop up in the eighth century, in the middle of the Nara era. Nunneries and monasteries were built in pairs, but the monasteries held all financial control. In 730, nuns were banned from chanting in the court and other important ceremonies (Fujimura-Fanselow).
Women lost political power in the eighth century as well. After Empress Koken's death, it became uncustomary, but not illegal, for women to be empresses, and so a woman never again held the throne. The matriarchal system inherent to Japanese clan organization was abolished in favor of the ever growing partiarchy (Lebra-Chapman).
This sentiment only increased in the Heian era, in both Buddhism and Shintoism. Shinto women were barred from ritual while menstruating, and Hoden, the founder of Pure Land Buddhism, once regarded women as "being too sinful and facing too many obstacles to accept any of the Buddhist paradise." At the end of the Sengoku period (15th to 17th century), the patriarchal ie family structure became popular. The ie structure could be seen in Buddhist monasteries, where the monks lived at the top of the mountain conducting religious services, and their wives, mothers, and sisters resided at the foot of the mountain, called satobo, performing domestic tasks. Ie organization wasn't abolished until after World War II, and since then , Japanese women have regained much of their former power (Fujimura-Fanselow).