The Japanese creation myth told in an ancient myth called the Kojiki. There are parts of this myth that seem quite sexist by modern standards.

“Kojiki.” Traditional Japanese Literature: An Anthology, Beginnings to 1600. Ed. Haruo Shirane and Sonja Arntzen. New York: Columbia UP, 2007. 16. Print.

Ancient myths can provide reliable knowledge in some respects. The extract above, for example, does highlight view of gender in the last sentence of the first paragraph: “It is not proper that the woman speak first.”

There is, however, a degree of certainty. The text above is translated and even the original is written in a form of Japanese that only a tiny percentage of Japanese people can now read. The Kojiki’s age (about 1300 years old) adds another layer of uncertainty due to the relative lack of information available about that far back in history.