#KuToo: Japan women revolt against high heels at work

Yumi Ishikawa, founder of the KuToo movement, in Tokyo. Pic/AFP

A group of Japanese women on Monday submitted a petition to the government to protest what they say is a de-facto requirement for female staff to wear high heels at work. The #KuToo campaign, a play on words from the Japanese word 'kutsu' - meaning shoes - and 'kutsuu' - meaning 'pain' - was launched by writer Yumi Ishikawa and quickly won support from nearly 19,000 people online.

Campaigners say wearing high heels is seen as near-obligatory when job hunting or working at many Japanese firms. "Today we submitted a plea seeking the introduction of laws which makes the forced dress code for women sexual discrimination or harassment," Ishikawa said after meeting labour ministry officials.

A ministry official who met her 'was a woman and sympathetic to our petition... and told us that this is the first time voices of this kind reached the ministry", Ishikawa said. Ministry officials were not immediately available for comment.

A tweet by Ishikawa earlier this year complained about the requirement to wear heels for a hotel job went viral, prompting her to launch the campaign. "As I realised that so many people face the same problem, I decided to launch the campaign," hot on the heels of the global anti-sexual harassment #MeToo campaign, she said.

Some campaigners online have said high heels are akin to modern foot-binding while many urged other dress codes, such as the near-total donning of business suits for men, to be loosened in the Japanese workplace.

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