Japanese Women Say #KuToo To Protest Against Wearing Heels to Work

Women in Japan are protesting online against the sexist obligation of having to wear heels to work.

Here’s why Japanese women are rejecting heels. 

(Photo: The Quint)

Did you know that it is mandatory for women in Tokyo to wear high heels to work?

That’s right, a working woman’s dress code in Japan’s capital city necessitates them to wear heels. But no such absurd dress code demands are observed when it comes to the men. We can smell the inequality all the way from Tokyo!

To protest against this form of discrimination, women have launched an online movement called ‘#KuToo’. The #KuToo movement takes a leaf out of the #MeToo movement as women finally speak out about the pain of having to work with heels.

“I want them to get rid of pumps for job hunting. Pumps are modern equivalent of foot-binding. It’s a mistake to force women to wear them. They say it’s proper manners to wear them? It’s a medical injury!”

A working woman in Tokyo to <a href="https://www.aninews.in/news/world/asia/kutoo-japanese-women-revolt-against-high-heels-at-the-workplace20190322072451/">ANI</a>

Women in Japan are using the #KuToo movement to express their anger over this extremely regressive social practice. #KuToo is a combination of the Japanese words for shoe (kutsu) and pain (kutsuu).

A lot of people are drawing parallels between having to wear heels at work with the discriminatory tradition of ‘foot binding'. While foot binding was a custom of applying tight binding to the feet of young girls to alter the shape and size of their foot, in some twisted way it is very similar in having to mandatorily wear heels to work.

Why can’t women’s feet just be left alone?

Needles to say the #KuToo movement was much needed. To wear heels or not wear them should be a choice and not an obligation. We hope that this movement serves its purpose and not just women in Japan but women all over the world don't have to comply to such absurd beauty standards. After all that hard work, they too deserve to put their feet up.