"One more figure is perhaps worth looking at as an example of female sovereignty within the Japanese imperial line. Not the second-century shaman-queens Himiko and Toyo, whose relationship to the modern imperial family is unclear, nor the conquering Empress Jingū (r. 201–269 CE, in the traditional dating), whose story is rife with nebulous historicity and later mythologisation. While they are famous as female rulers, Iitoyo (r. 484) is all but forgotten. This is accounted for partly by the brevity of her reign (about half a year) and the resulting dearth of information concerning her. Certainly, she was not thought of by ancient chroniclers as a legitimate empress; while the ostensible regent Jingū is still afforded her own section in the Nihon shoki, Iitoyo warrants only a brief mention in the annals of her successor, Emperor Kenzō (r. 485–487). Early records never grant her the full monarchic title; only in the twelfth-century chronology Fusō ryakki is she known as a monarch.
Iitoyo took power following the death of Emperor Seinei (r. 444–484). Her enthronement was enabled by succession confusion, although two different eighth-century court histories give varying accounts. In the older work, the Kojiki, the only living male heirs are still in hiding following a bout of internecine rival-murdering on a previous emperor’s part; Iitoyo is portrayed more as a regent, merely holding court until the true (male) heirs can be found, fitting in more closely with the ‘placeholder’ narrative. In the other, the Nihon shoki, however, her reign occurs while said heirs cannot agree on which is to rule; here, she appears as a more disruptive presence, circumventing the patriline and even using a regnal name (derided by the text as ‘self-styled’).
The Nihon shoki interpretation presents her as a brief pretender-queen, a short-term challenge to the ‘proper’ line of succession; she is insistently dismissed as a legitimate monarch, and yet, recognised or not, Iitoyo was the effective sovereign of Japan for a short time in the late fifth century. Iitoyo in the Nihon shoki shows yet another side of the notion of the ‘traditional’ placeholder, in that early female sovereigns could be written out of official narratives entirely, despite functioning as empresses regnant in all other aspects. The imperial family’s own internal chronology is itself a narrative constructed over the course of centuries; the ‘traditions’ present within it carefully curated by later generations. The question of what the imperial tradition even permits, in terms of female rulership, is further complicated by the very artifice of what gets to be considered as ‘tradition’ in the first place."
McKay Natalie, "More than placeholders: The ‘century of empresses’ against modern succession laws"
