(Adnkronos) – Shorts ‘greenlighted’ in the office, instead of jacket and tie, to better cope with the scorching heat. Thus, Tokyo has offered men the opportunity to go to work wearing more informal attire, consisting of t-shirts, shorts, and sneakers. The ‘Tokyo Cool Biz’, implemented in the Japanese capital by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike to tackle global warming, is popular, but not with everyone. Some believe that the new, more permissive policy is actually unfair to women. Although it is not an official rule, but rather a matter of etiquette, in a traditional Japanese office environment, women are still expected to wear tights when their work attire leaves their legs exposed.
It is therefore women who express the greatest reservations and feel most embarrassed, next to colleagues with exposed, and moreover ”hairy”, legs. Some women have indeed spoken of “leg hair harassment,” or “sunehara,” using a term coined online that refers to the discomfort of being forced to see a colleague’s leg hair. “We want to offer people more options to cope with the scorching heat, not dictate what they should wear. There should be no problems, as long as work attire does not offend anyone,” Noboru Watanabe, an environmental official for the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, told the BBC.
A survey conducted in June by Gorilla Clinic found that 53.5% of respondents were against the idea of wearing shorts to work in the summer, while 46.5% were in favor. For those who spoke out against shorts in the office, the main reason, for both sexes, but especially for women, is concern about physical appearance and unwanted hair. In recent years, more and more Japanese workers have started wearing casual clothes. This year, the Tokyo Metropolitan Government’s guidelines have made this attire more socially acceptable. But for some, the discomfort remains.
Akifumi Funatsu, director of Gorilla Clinic, has noted an increase in clients who turn to the clinic not only for aesthetic reasons, but also for a matter of “social etiquette when wearing shorts.” Funatsu believes that women think “men should have less leg hair,” which prompts men to resort to laser hair removal so as not to offend those around them.
Tokyo Governor Koike first introduced the summer wardrobe change when she was Japan’s Environment Minister in 2005. It was then that she launched a national energy-saving campaign called “Cool Biz” to encourage company employees to prefer short-sleeved shirts. Government officials joined the initiative, and then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi was often seen in public without a tie or jacket, thus helping to spread the message. Years later, the government launched “Super Cool Biz,” a program that expanded guidelines to reduce energy consumption both at work and at home.
