The #KuToo movement is an ongoing movement in Japan against the high heel policy in workplaces. The name is a reference to the Me Too movement and a play on words with kutsu (靴, "shoes") and kutsū (苦痛, "pain"). Origins and development KuToo was started in 2019 by Yumi Ishikawa, a Japanese actress, freelance writer, and part-time funeral parlor worker. Many businesses in Japan require women employees to wear heels of between five and seven centimeters, or 1.9 and 2.75 inches, in height. Ishikawa found shoes of this type to be inconvenient and uncomfortable at work, and complained on Twitter about wearing them. Her comment received nearly 30,000 retweets and more than 60,000 likes, and other women shared their own stories of discomfort with heels, posting photos of their bloodied and blistered feet. Ishikawa then collected 18,856 signatures for a petition on not forcing women to wear high heels in the workplace and presented it to Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare. At the parliamentary committee session of Health, Labour and Welfare on June 5, 2019, Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare said "in terms of work place safety, it is very important for employer to consider whether clothing and foot wear can lead backpain or slipping incident etc. and necessary safety procedures shall be taken according to the individual workplace condition", "requiring Women to wear heels in workplace shall be done within the reasonable necessity and range of reasonable necessity is determined based on common sense with considering to the individual work place condition", "requiring worker with foot injury to wear heels without necessity can be considered to be power harassment", but his remarks were interpreted quite differently by different media outlets. One is that the minister said he could not condone forcing women to wear high heels in the workplace, and the other is that the minister condoned forcing women to wear high heels in the workplace. In response to a press inquiry seeking the truth, the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare described the minister's remarks as "While it is unacceptable to force women to wear high heels in circumstances that result in accidents or injury, neither can the government prohibit companies from requiring female employees to wear high heels unless they are beyond what is necessary and reasonable in the course of business in accordance with conventional wisdom." One reason for the apathy of Japanese Diet