Japan Schools Enforce Ponytail Ban On Female Students As They Could ‘Sexually Excite’ Male Pupils

Tokyo: From regulating the length of socks to the colour of underwear, Japanese schools are infamous for their strict mandates on what students can wear. Now, in a bizarre move, Japanese schools have prohibited female students from wearing their hair in ponytails because the “nape of their necks” could “sexually excite” male students.

Motoki Sugiyama, a former middle school teacher, told VICE the reasoning behind the move is similar to that of the schools’ white-only underwear policy, so that they won’t show through the uniforms.

“They’re worried boys will look at girls, which is similar to the reasoning behind upholding a white-only underwear color rule,” Sugiyama told VICE World News,

As per the report, there are no nationwide statistics on how many schools still impose a ponytail ban, but a 2020 survey suggests that about one in ten schools in the southern prefecture of Fukuoka prohibited the hairstyle.

In June last year, students and parents had raised objections to such rules, which had reportedly prompted the Japanese government to ask all prefectural boards of education to revise draconian school mandates. After that, some institutions had changed their ways, but many decades-old practices are slow to fade.

Apart from ponytail ban, known as buraku kosoku, imposed on students in Japan, laundry list of draconian rules include dictate the shade of students’ underwear and socks, skirt length and eyebrow shape and hair color.

“Students were seldom given an explanation for such rules,” said Sugiyama, who makes videos on TikTok about Japan’s education system and buraku kosoku.

According to Sugiyama, the reasons behind imposing such rules often were arbitrary. For example, schools that ban ponytails often allow bob hairstyles, even if they expose about as much of the neck as ponytails do. But other times, it was ostensibly to prevent a domino effect of wild hairstyles. The undercut, a hairstyle that shaves the sides but leaves the top long, is similarly prohibited.

“Because if the two-block (undercut) is OK, then some students might start saying the mohawk should be OK,” Sugiyama explained.