Japanese women push to ban mandatory high heels in workplaces
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Thousands of people in Japan are calling for the government to ban mandatory dress codes for women that include high heels in workplaces.
Actress and freelance writer Yumi Ishikawa launched an online petition saying that women face health issues for consistently wearing high-heeled shoes, including bunions, blisters, and pain in the lower back. She said she is required to wear heels at her part-time job in a funeral parlor.
“I am worried when thinking about getting older,” she wrote, according to Sky News. “It is difficult to move on the job, you cannot run, it hurts your feet.”
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Yumi Ishikawa in the leader and founder of the KuToo movement, which circulated an online campaign #KuToo, using a pun from a Japanese word "kutsu" -- that can mean either "shoes" or "pain. (Photo credit by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP/Getty Images)
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She called the campaign the #KuToo movement, which is a play on #MeToo and an amalgam of the Japanese terms for “shoes” and “pain.”
At a news conference, the 32-year-old Ishikawa said that the petition has been submitted to the Japanese health ministry with nearly 20,000 signatures.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“Ideally we would like a new law as I believe this is an urgent issue,” she said. “I would like social perceptions to change so that women wearing flat shoes becomes standard.”
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The campaign’s supporters say that wearing heels in Japan is seen as near-obligatory when job hunting or working. Ishikawa noted that men are not held to the same expectations for dress code “manners” as women.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}“This is a problem that many women believe was a personal issue because [wearing high heels] is generally seen as good etiquette.”
Health ministry officials did not immediately comment on the petition.
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Similar campaigns have cropped up around the world in recent years, including at the Cannes Film Festival after women were reportedly turned away from 2015 movie premieres for wearing flats.
Director Jodie Foster and cast member Julia Roberts are welcomed by Cannes Film Festival president Pierre Lescure and general delegate Thierry Fremaux at the screening of "Money Monster," out of competition during the 69th Cannes Film Festival in Cannes, France. (Reuters)
Oscar winner Julia Roberts responded to the backlash by gracing the red carpet barefoot the following year, while in 2018, Kristen Stewart defied the festival’s dress code by removing her stilettos after arriving for the BlacKkKlansman premiere.