![]() When I started #KuToo this year, I knew what I was doing was connected to this gender issue. I was despatched to a funeral services company. ![]() I began temping so I didn’t have to be bound by the rules of any one company. My employer blamed me for not telling them about my tweet in advance and treated me like a troublesome employee. After that, I started to study gender issues.Īt the time, I was working as a clerk in an office. I got a lot of sympathetic reactions.īut the media in Japan did not take #MeToo seriously, especially TV, which didn’t feature it at all. Women were telling me they had the same experience and that what I had experienced was harassment. I heard back from other people who suffered sexual harassment and forced sexual activity. How did you go from painful toes to launching a full-blown campaign in the style of #MeToo?Īt the end of 2017, I actually tweeted #MeToo about my experience working in the entertainment world. Each ceremony takes three to four hours and sometimes there were two ceremonies a day, so I was on my feet for six to eight hours a day. At that time, I was required to wear pumps with a 5 to 7 cm heel. ![]() I worked as an assistant helping to make sure funeral services went smoothly and helping guests to navigate the funeral parlour to offer condolences. Tell us about the episode that started it all – your job working in a funeral parlour. In the last week of October 2019, she launched a brand of flat shoes-KuToo Follower-styled like men’s lace-ups, but in smaller sizes to fit women.īelow, Ishikawa speaks with us about her political awakening and the fight ahead. In October 2019, Ishikawa made the BBC’s list of 100 inspiring and influential women from around the world, alongside activists, journalists, athletes and scientists. But her message has struck a chord with many. Others think her background as a pin-up model somehow disqualifies her from speaking up about gender rights. But it’s particularly pervasive in corporate Japan, where dress codes for both men and women tend to be strict. ![]() High heels are considered de rigueur around the world for various corporate jobs, flight attendants, and famously on the red carpet at Cannes. Japan is not alone in its high heel dress code, of course. She submitted the petition to the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare in June, with no success. Since then, an online petition she started urging the government to make it illegal for employers to force employees to wear high heels has garnered 31,000 signatures, resonating with women of all ages across Japan. Japan’s high-heel requirement for women, which is common across industries, was a form of gender discrimination, she claimed, and resulted in real harm-bunions, blistering and bleeding-which men were not subjected to. Ishikawa, 33, combined the Japanese word for shoe, kutsu, and the word for pain, kutsuu, and #KuToo was born. In January this year, a freelance writer, model and actress in Tokyo named Yumi Ishikawa complained on Twitter about the torture of being forced to wear high heels for her part-time job as a funeral services assistant. In Japan, a backlash against mandatory high heels is sparking a wider conversation around women’s rights in the workplace.
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