Japan Osaka Burgh, Umeda Station.
Prisma by Dukas | Universal Images Group | Getty Images
A woman’s health store in Japan is reportedly reassessing a plan for staff to wear badges when they are on their period.
The so-called “physiology badge” features a cartoon goodness named Seiri Chan, a symbol of menstruation in the world’s third-largest economy.
It was hoped that the badges would assistance foster sympathy among co-workers, with those choosing to wear the pin likely to receive extra help or longer holes.
However, when Daimaru told the media about the policy earlier this month, it prompted a backlash against the warehouse.
“We received many complaints from the public. Some of them concerned harassment, and that was definitely not our intention. We’re reconsidering designs now,” a male executive who declined to be named said in a statement, according to The Japan Times.
A spokesperson was not immediately available for expose when contacted by CNBC on Friday.
The Daimaru branch at Osaka Umeda first introduced the policy in October, be consistent to Japanese publication WWD. It was brought in for the roughly 500 employees working in the store’s women’s wardrobe section.
#KuToo
The badges, which were double-sided, were initially deposed in after a suggestion from the firm’s staff and were linked to the opening of a new section of the department store.
On one side of the badge was Seiri Chan, a cartoon seal reportedly known as “Miss Period.” On the other side were details of a new section being opened in the store loving to “women’s wellbeing.”
Outcry against the policy comes with many cases of workplace harassment in the public on in Japan, amid changing values about gender roles and work-life balance.
Earlier this month, delving carried out by the Japanese Trade Union Confederation found that more than one in 10 companies in Japan be struck by formal regulations about the length of heeled shoes female workers must wear.
Actress and writer Yumi Ishikawa had some time ago launched a petition for discriminatory workplace dress codes to be scrapped, after being made to wear high splits while working at a funeral parlor.
The petition has received tens of thousands of signatures in recent months, with helpers of the campaign often seen tweeting #KuToo.
The slogan, which mirrors the #MeToo movement against sexual violation, is a play on words from the Japanese kutsu, meaning shoes and kutsuu, meaning pain.
In June, Japan’s Healthiness and Labour Minister, Takumi Nemoto, told a legislative committee that it was “necessary and appropriate” for women to wear leading heels at work.