The backlash HR leaders should study<\/p>\n
The policy applies to men and women alike on paper. In practice, critics say it has widened the gap. Women report that cultural expectations still require them to wear tights when showing their legs, spend money on hair removal and maintain a polished appearance that men are not held to. The online term \u201csunehara,\u201d a portmanteau meaning \u201cleg hair harassment,\u201d quickly gained traction to describe the unease some women feel when male colleagues go bare-legged in professional settings.<\/p>\n
Atsuko Tamada, a French literature professor at Chubu University in Japan, argued in an interview with the New York Times that if men are being encouraged to dress down and bare their legs, they should also be expected to groom them. Some men have taken the hint: Dr. Akifumi Funatsu, director of Gorilla Clinic in Tokyo, told the BBC he has noticed more male clients seeking laser hair removal, not for cosmetic reasons, but as \u201csocial etiquette when wearing shorts.\u201d<\/p>\n
For\u00a0HR executives, the dynamic is familiar. Dress code disputes have long been a flashpoint for gender discrimination claims. Policies requiring women to wear heels or makeup while imposing no comparable standard for men have been successfully challenged in court<\/a>, and the risk extends to any rule that creates unequal expectations around grooming, body hair or skin coverage.<\/p>\n What the Tokyo experiment means for workplaces<\/p>\n The Tokyo case is instructive because the policy itself was gender-neutral. The problem was the culture surrounding it, a gap between the written rule and the lived experience of men and women in the office. That gap is something HR leaders deal with every day, whether the issue is addressing inappropriate behavior before it escalates<\/a> or navigating the rising complexity of workplace misconduct, which hit a near seven-year high in 2025 according to a report from HR Acuity<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) has recommended that employers center dress codes on neutrality, using gender-neutral language to describe acceptable and unacceptable attire, and ensuring cultural and religious accommodations are built in. Theresa Adams, a senior HR knowledge advisor at SHRM, noted in an April 2025 analysis<\/a> that \u201can inclusive dress code strengthens trust, empowers individuals, and reinforces a collaborative and respectful workplace culture.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The backlash HR leaders should study The policy applies to men and women alike on paper. In practice,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":64718,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[13687,8247,8,40272,52],"class_list":["post-64717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tokyo","tag-dress-code","tag-hr","tag-japan","tag-leg-hair","tag-tokyo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/japan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}