Women in Japan are fighting for the right to wear flat shoes to work and job interviews without the risk of discrimination.
A petition started by actor and writer Yumi Ishikawa was delivered to the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare on Monday, according to , with close to 19,000 signatures. The #KuToo campaign - a play on the Japanese words 'kutsu', meaning shoes, and 'kutsuu', meaning pain - argues that high heels are often viewed as obligatory for women while job-hunting and remain a requirement by many Japanese companies.
"Today we submitted a petition calling for the introduction of laws banning employers from forcing women to wear heels as sexual discrimination or harassment," Ishikawa told reporters after delivering her petition.
According to Ishikawa, the ministry official who met her "was a woman and sympathetic to our petition ... and told us that this is the first time voices of this kind reached the ministry."
She called the petition "the first step forward" on the road to achieving their ultimate goal of podiatric freedom.
While there's no explicit law that states women must wear high heels to work, women involved in the #KuToo campaign say that heels are viewed as a basic requirement, even comparing the expectation to foot binding, reports .
