Tokyo Officials in Shorts Slammed by Female Colleagues — Heatwave Splits Offices Into Two Camps

Tokyo authorities have allowed municipal employees to wear shorts to work because of the record-breaking heat, but the move has unexpectedly sparked a public debate: some women say they find the sight of men's hairy legs in the office unpleasant.

Noboru Watanabe, a 53-year-old Tokyo city hall employee, showed up to work in shorts for the first time in more than thirty years. "Everyone tells me I look younger. People say I seem more approachable, and I think it's helping lighten the mood across the whole office," he told The New York Times.

The initiative is part of Tokyo's Cool Biz programme, which this year expanded the range of summer clothing options for staff and builds on a long-standing push by Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike. The goal is to cut air-conditioning costs while making things easier for employees during increasingly frequent heatwaves.

The change, however, has triggered an unexpected backlash. Some women complain that the sight of men's hairy legs bothers them — the phenomenon has even earned its own term online, "sunehara". "Some women find it off-putting," admitted 23-year-old Ruai Sadzuki. She herself isn't bothered by it, she says, since her father often wore shorts around the house when she was growing up.

According to Watanabe, the point of relaxing the dress code was never to make women feel uncomfortable at the sight of bare male legs. "We want to give people more options during extreme heat. There shouldn't be an issue as long as the work attire doesn't offend anyone," he told the BBC.

The criticism isn't limited to men's calves. Opponents of the new rules argue the approach is unfair: men are rarely judged for their choice of workwear, while women are still expected to wear tights or long skirts.

Atsuko Tamada, a professor of French literature at Tsudabe University, notes that women have traditionally been expected to spend considerable time and money on grooming, hair removal and choosing appropriate clothing. "If men are now being encouraged to wear shorts or sandals, shouldn't the same appearance standards apply to them too?" she asks.

Public pressure is already having an effect: some men, self-conscious about their leg hair, are opting to have it removed. Akifumi Funatsu, director of the Gorilla Clinic chain of men's aesthetic medicine clinics, has noticed a rise in clients coming in not just for cosmetic reasons but also because of the social etiquette surrounding shorts. More and more men, he says, are choosing laser hair removal so as not to offend those around them.

The reason behind Tokyo's relaxed workplace dress code is simple: Japan is enduring an exceptionally hot summer. According to Japan's Fire and Disaster Management Agency, seven people died from heat-related causes and another 4,580 were hospitalised in just one week, from 6 to 12 July.

Around Prague, based on reporting by novinky.cz