Japan Minister Said Women Should Wear High Heels To Work When Asked About Gender Discrimination

High heels have been seen as an integral part of a woman’s formal attire for many decades now.

It was a symbol of beauty, elegance, and femininity.

However, as we progress into a new age, some women have started to swap out their high heels for flat shoes.

Some did it for comfort, while some did it due to the adverse health effects of prolonged high heels usage. You can read about them in our article here.

Other than the aforementioned types, some women have abandoned their high heels to fight patriarchal customs in the workplace.

As gender equality has peaked for many first-world countries, high heels are generally no longer considered a requirement as part of the work attire for females.

However, it seems that Japan’s Health and Labour Minister Takumi Nemoto has missed the memo.

High Heels Are “Necessary”

In a recent Diet committee session, Nemoto stated he still thinks that high heels are “necessary and reasonable”.

And that it is “generally accepted by society” for it to be part of the work attire for females.

He had made these statements when asked for his thoughts on a petition started to combat gender-based workplace discrimination.

The petition called for the Japanese government to put out a ban to prevent workplaces from requiring female employees and job seekers to wear high heels. It had received over 18,800 signatures.

Abuse Only If Injured Women Are Forced To Wear Them

Kanako Otsuji, a member of the opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, was the one who posed the question to Nemoto, stating that forcing women to wear high heels to work is “outdated”.

Otsuji also added that it amounts to harassment, but Nemoto insisted that it was only “abuse of power if a worker with a hurt foot is forced (to wear high heels)”.

The group that had started the petition was led by the Japanese writer and actress Yumi Ishikawa, who is part of the #KuToo movement – a combination of the #MeToo movement as well as a play the Japanese words kutsu (shoes), and kutsū (pain). 

She stated that the movement was a way to raise awareness about sexism in the workplace, and that “appearances are more important for work than for men”.

Japan’s Workplace Ingrained Sexism

Despite being a first-world country, Japan lacks far behind many others in terms of gender equality, especially in the workplace. This is perhaps due to the workplace being dominated and controlled by men (and sometimes even women) of the old guard with traditional ideals.

There have been multiple accounts of women facing severe sexism in Japan. There was a boss that stopped a young male worker from cleaning and claimed it was a woman’s job to use a vacuum cleaner. A detailed article of ingrained sexism in the Japanese workplace can be read here.

While the matter of high heels might seem trivial to some people, in Japan it can be seen a symbolism of the patriarchy in the workplace or even the country in general.

An issue such as footwear, if solved, is quite literally a big step towards gender equality in Japan.