Japan: Schools Ban Ponytail, Fearing It Could Sexually Excite Men

Japanese schools are very strict when it comes to what students can wear in school. For example, the color of hair should be black, if your natural hair color is not black, you have to dye it black before coming to school. Students can not wear colored underwear in school, only white is allowed. Although, these strict rules are recently abolished, however, there is still one rule that is being criticized in the online community.

Vice news recently interviewed a former teacher of a Japanese school where he revealed that girls cannot wear a ponytail because it could sexually excite men after seeing the nape of the girl. Former middle school teacher, Motoki Sugiyama said:

They’re worried boys will look at girls. I’ve always criticized these rules, but because there’s such a lack of criticism and it’s become so normalized, students have no choice but to accept them,

In his 11 year of teaching career, Sugiyama taught at 5 different schools, and all of those schools had that same rule of banning ponytail. We do not have any data for how many schools in Japan are still banning ponytails, however, according to a survey conducted in 2010, 1 in 10 schools in the Fukuoka prefecture were banning ponytails.

The White underwear requirement is still carried out in some schools in Japan. One reason behind this requirement is that colored undergarments could be visible more. Board of education in Saga prefecture carried out a survey, where they found out that 14 out of 51 schools in the area had white underwear requirement. The board later decided to abolish the rule for all the schools.

What are your thoughts on “no ponytail” in Japaneses school? Let us know your opinion in the comment section.

Source: Vice


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