The title is awarded yearly to the winner of the a best-of-five match between the defending Women's Meijin and a challenger determined through league play.
Up until 1974, there had no been system specifically for women players within the Japan Shogi Association (JSA) and they were expected to meet the same promotion and ranking rules as men if they wanted to obtain full professional status (正棋士 (Seikishi)) as a shogi player.
This was done primarily out of deference to the regular professional shogi players who competed for the Meijin title so as to acknowledge its higher status.
The challengers league consists of ten players who are seeded based upon their performance in the previous years' tournament.
It is a round-robin tournament with a time control of two hours per game with the winner advancing to the title match against the defending Women's Meijin.
In cases where relegation is unclear due to ties, a playoff is held to determine which player remains in the challengers league.
[c] The title match is a best-of-five format between the defending Women's Meijin and the winner of the challengers league with the time control for each game being three hours per player.
The winner is awarded the title of "Women's Meijin", while the loser becomes the first seed in the challenger league for the next tournament cycle.
As of November 2020,[update] three players have qualified for the title: Hiroe Nakai (1992), Ichiyo Shimizu (1996) and Kana Satomi (2013).