Enough is enough! Japan’s movement to stop lookism

Standing on the train in Japan, most of you would realize that trains are filled with ads telling you to “lose weight,” “do hair removal and get a baby-smooth body” and “get your hair back!” Am I not allowed to stay with my current appearance? I rolled my eyes and then was met with the gaze of a good-looking woman with double eyelids and long lashes in an ad. Not only train advertisements but also TV, streaming services, fashion magazines and social media repeatedly imprint onto our minds to “be beautiful” as though “ugly” people are not welcome in society.

Ads set beauty standards before no one knows

The ads mentioned above are not necessarily lookism, but they certainly give rise to lookism discrimination by contributing to the majority’s beauty standards. What is truly frightening is that the iconic advertising figures we may aspire to be gradually turn into a beauty standard by which we judge ourselves and those around us, without even realizing it.

Lookism describes interpersonal bias and discrimination against someone based on their appearance. The origin of lookism dates back to the 1970s in the US, when people used the term “lookism” for the first time during the fat acceptance movement. It’s been only within the last four or five years that the term has come into use in Japan. In 2021, the Sanseidō Japanese Dictionary which has been revised for the first time in eight years, finally includes “lookism (ルッキズム).”

Japan’s progress I: A revolution of Miss Con

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上智大学 ソフィアンズコンテスト 2023(@sophianscontest)がシェアした投稿

Although the so-called “body positive movement” and confessions of Hollywood celebrities via social media about fighting with lookism are still fresh in my memory, interest in lookism is growing not only in the world but also in Japan. In 2021, one woman who was competing in a beauty pageant at Sophia University in Tokyo, decided to hide her face throughout the pageant because she thought she didn’t need to show her face to get her message out.

The beauty pageants in universities, a.k.a. Miss Contests or “Miss Con,” for short, have been controversial for many years because they may give rise to lookism. However, thanks to increasing awareness of lookism, many universities have gotten rid of Miss Cons or changed their form to one that doesn’t include appearance as a criterion.

Japan’s progress II: Major shakeup to the job application forms

Moreover, Unilever Japan, the arm of the British-Dutch Multinational, hasn’t required applicants to submit photos nor even their first name with their resumes since 2020. Traditionally, Japanese resumes are supposed to include photos, no matter the type of job you are applying for, while in other countries, there’s no need to put photos nor any personal information on resumes because they may trigger discrimination against race, gender or appearance.

According to research by Unilever in 2017, Japanese teenagers have the lowest self-esteem in the world. It may be very challenging to end lookism, especially in a society where modesty has been considered to be a virtue. However, it is urgent to recognize our bias and update values in a world where we want to embrace diversity, including gender, race and age.