Japan is not the only country where women have protested against unequal company dress codes. To be honest, it’s super-fun to be angry.” “If we expressed our anger, we were suppressed by words such as ‘hysteria’ and we were told we wouldn’t be popular or wouldn’t be heard if we spoke like that. “ weren’t allowed to be angry,” Ishikawa writes in her book. Public displays of emotion are often disapproved of in Japan, where gaman (perseverance) is a virtue, particularly in workplaces where long hours and egregious forms of power or sexual harassment are endured in silence. In the opening chapter of her just-released book #KuToo, Ishikawa talks about the liberation that came from expressing her anger. ![]() Ishikawa challenged not only traditional dress codes for female staff but also the shaming culture and “put up or shut up” attitudes that have long prevented Japanese women from speaking out against social injustices. ![]() Her movement has since evolved from a focus on women’s footwear to a wider debate around Japan’s entrenched culture of sexual discrimination. When a critic cited her past roles in soft-pornographic films to cast doubt on her activism, she fired back: “So you’re saying a woman who shows her boobs has no human rights?” She received a vicious avalanche of replies ranging from criticism of her sideline as a bikini model to the all-too-common, “You could always quit that job” and the far-fetched, “By adult age, a woman’s foot normally evolves to become capable of wearing heels.”īut Ishikawa was undeterred. Japan’s health and labour minister later said it was “generally accepted” that women wearing high heels at work was “necessary and appropriate” © Ayaka Yamamoto Yumi Ishikawa’s petition for a ban on high heel stipulations at work has collected more than 31,500 signatures. I was unashamed so people assumed someone very mean had spoken out.” “The bashing started right after that tweet,” she says. When we meet, Ishikawa, wearing a sweater and skirt with black leather shoes (flat, of course), is soft-spoken and unpretentious. The debate dominated national headlines and TV programmes throughout the year, but the #KuToo hashtag also struck a chord internationally, prompting celebrities such as singer Cyndi Lauper to chime in (she tweeted a photo of her black patent loafers, describing them as “so comfortable in my work space”). When she submitted her petition to the health ministry in June, it had been signed by nearly 19,000 people and has now collected more than 31,500 signatures. Her comment went viral it has been retweeted 29,000 times, helping her become the face of the #KuToo movement - a play on the Japanese words for shoes ( kutsu), pain ( kutsuu) and #MeToo.Įncouraged by the response, Ishikawa, who is also a freelance writer, launched a petition for a ban on high-heel stipulations by employers in Japan. ![]() The 32-year-old actor was working as an usher in a funeral parlour at the time, a job that involved eight-hour shifts in heels measuring 5cm-7cm. But Yumi Ishikawa’s life changed with a tweet she posted on January 24 this year: “Someday I want to get rid of the practice of women having to wear heels and pumps at work.” It was meant to be just one of her regular, mundane musings about life as a woman in Japan.
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