Barred from wearing glasses, Japan's working women take to Twitter

Many Japanese women are fighting for the right to wear eyeglasses to work, a new front in the growing movement that demands an end to the prescriptive beauty standards faced by female employees.

The hashtag “glasses ban” started trending on Twitter on Wednesday, after Nippon TV aired a story about companies that require female employees to wear contact lenses instead of glasses. One post decrying such policies racked up almost 25,000 retweets.

あのな、目が悪い人って裸眼だと常にこんな視界になるわけよ。
メガネないと生きていけんし、コンタクトは維持費も地味にかかるし目の調子悪くて付けれない日もあるし。
命を守って普通に日常生活過ごすための『医療器具』なんだからアホみたいな理由で禁止しないでくれ。#メガネ禁止 pic.twitter.com/63wbiOS2ka

— 望那 (@seedia1890_mona) November 6, 2019

One Twitter user said she was told by her previous employer that glasses didn’t appeal to customers, while another said she was compelled to endure the pain of wearing contact lenses while recovering from an eye infection.

“The emphasis on appearance is often on young women and wanting them to look feminine,” Banri Yanagi, a 40-year-old sales associate at a life insurer in Tokyo, said in an interview. “It’s strange to allow men to wear glasses but not women.”

The prohibition on glasses by some firms is the latest flash point for professional women in Japan. In March, women railed against the common requirement that women wear makeup at work. Earlier this year, actor and writer Yumi Ishikawa sparked the #KuToo movement to criticize rules that require women to wear high heels to work. The hashtag plays on the Japanese words for shoe (kutsu) and pain (kutsū).

“If wearing glasses is a real problem at work it should be banned for everyone — men and women,” said Ishikawa, who started a petition signed by more than 31,000 supporters who agree that standing in heels all day should not be a job requirement for female workers. “This problem with glasses is the exact same as high heels. It’s only a rule for female workers.”

When a group submitted a petition in June calling on the government to ban the high-heeled shoe requirement, then-Health, Labor and Welfare Minister Takumi Nemoto said he was fine with the status quo, according to Kyodo News.

“It’s generally accepted by society that (wearing high heels) is necessary and reasonable in workplaces,” Nemoto said at a Diet committee session, according to the report. Nemoto, who retired in September, was unavailable for comment.

There have been no changes to rules governing dress codes, labor ministry official Ryutarou Yamagishi said by phone. He said he wasn’t aware of the “glasses ban” hashtag.