By FUMIKO KURIBAYASHI/ Staff Writer
March 24, 2020 at 17:30 JST
Japan Airlines Co. will no longer require its female staff to wear high heels to coincide with the introduction of new uniforms for its employees in April. This photo was taken in July 2019 in Tokyo’s Ota Ward. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Japan Airlines Co. female flight attendants are flying high with the company's planned revision of its work dress code to allow them to wear more comfortable shoes on the job, rather than high heels.
The change apparently comes in response to the widespread online movement in Japan calling for an end to the requirement that women in the workplace wear high heels.
“I heard that employees made the request (to revise the dress code),” said a JAL public relations official. “We took into account gender equality and the safety and health of our employees (in deciding to revise the dress code).”
At a March 23 Upper House Budget Committee session, Akira Koike, secretary-general of the Japanese Communist Party, praised JAL’s decision to revise its dress code.
“I want to show respect for JAL’s quick response,” he said.
JAL’s current dress code stipulates that female cabin attendants should wear black pumps that have heels 3 to 4 centimeters high and about 4 cm wide. From April, JAL will allow the attendants and other female staff to wear shoes with no heels, as the company revises its dress code and introduces new uniforms for its cabin attendants and ground staff.
Under the revised dress code, the heels of shoes need to be 0 to 4 cm high and female staff will be allowed to wear shoes other than high heels, such as loafers and driving shoes, as long as the footwear is black and simple in design.
Actress Yumi Ishikawa raised opposition online last year to requiring women to wear high heels in the workplace, sparking the online #KuToo movement.
KuToo took its inspiration from the global MeToo movement against sexual harassment. The name is also a play on the Japanese words for shoes, “kutsu,” and pain, also “kutsu.”
During a March 3 Upper House Budget Committee session, Koike asked Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to support abolishing office dress codes that cause pain to only women.
“I want to say clearly that women should never be forced to suffer from dress (codes) despite doing the same job as their male counterparts,” Abe replied.
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