Thousands of women are "throwing" high heels against the wall...what is the reason?

Dubai, United Arab Emirates More than 19,000 people in Japan have signed a petition to ban office dress codes, which force women to wear high heels to work. Feminist writer and artist, Yumi Ishikawa, launched the petition after her tweets about being forced to wear high heels to work received more than 67,000 likes and were retweeted about 30,000 times by other tweeters.

The artist said on social media that she "hopes to get rid of the habit of women wearing high heels to work," especially since for many years, many companies in Japan have required female employees to wear high heels. It is noteworthy that Ishikawa coined the hashtag “#KuToo”, which is a combination of two Japanese words, i.e. “kutsu”, meaning shoes, and “kutsuu”, meaning pain, in a similar way to the “#MeToo” movement, which represents an international movement against sexual harassment.

Many women used the hashtag “#KuToo” to talk about their experiences with high heels on social media. An official in the Equal Employment Opportunities Department of the Ministry of Health in Japan said, “The ministry has no plans to change the rules about whether employers can require employees to wear certain clothes or shoes,” noting that “there are currently no laws preventing companies from regulating employees’ work clothing.”

The official pointed out that men are also subject to these laws, as they are usually required to wear neckties and leather shoes, adding: “If ideas about behavior change in society, the rules may be subject to change.” This campaign follows another campaign launched in the United Kingdom in 2016, where more than 100,000 people signed to ban the dress code, which forces women to wear high heels.