'Leg hair harassment’: Women in Japan don’t want men wearing shorts to the office as temperatures soar past 40C
Officials in Tokyo have urged men to wear shorts to work to cope with rising temperatures, but their female co-workers aren’t happy.
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The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is telling salarymen to stop wearing suits and switch to more casual attire, including shorts, when heat ramps up in the summer months.
Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike introduced "Tokyo Cool Biz" in April, but four months on, a rift has emerged.
One prominent retailer, Yofuku no Aoyama, has even designed an office-appropriate “Cool biz” range of clothes.
But women in offices in Tokyo are still expected to wear tights if their work attire exposes their legs.
And female office workers have coined a term ‘sunehara’ or ‘leg hair harassment’ - referring to the discomfort of being forced to look at their male colleagues’ hairy legs.
“I just don’t think hairy legs look very neat,” Sachie Koike, a 52-year-old estate agent, told AFP.
Another female office worker said: “Middle-aged men, please do not wear shorts. It makes me uncomfortable. Please do not expose your shins. I don’t want to see them.”
Atsuko Tamada, a professor of French literature at Chubu University in Japan, said: “Women already face significant social pressure to invest time and money in their appearance.
“If men are now encouraged to wear shorts or sandals, should the same standards of appearance apply to them?”
Japan saw record high temperatures of 41.8C last August.
The Japanese Meteorological Agency has introduced a new category of “kokushobi”, or “brutally hot day” when temperatures go above 40C.