It has recently come to my attention that a form of discrimination goes unchecked in Japan, and may even be enforced by the schools: discrimination against people with brown hair. A Japanese friend who works at a cooking college in Tokyo has been required to dye her hair black countless times by her employers. I asked her why she had to do this since her hair was naturally brown, and she couldn't give me a good answer. She said only that it was cumbersome and expensive to dye her hair, and wished her employers would leave her alone.
I could not comprehend the reasoning behind such a rule, other than a false assumption that "normal" or "correct" Japanese hair should be black. My friend was quite upset about this, so I dropped the subject. Later I began to notice during junior high school staff meetings that teachers regularly mention chappatsu (brown hair), when they talk about students' problematic or delinquent behavior.
I can see how wearing skirts too short, or wearing earrings or makeup, could be a violation of a school's dress code, but brown hair? Wouldn't forcing kids with naturally brown hair to dye their hair black be in direct conflict with the no-makeup policy?
I privately asked one teacher about the contradictory nature of the school's rules, and he agreed with me. After several of these meetings, I began to realize that this rule against brown hair is not just silly and unreasonable; it's discrimination. It's time we stop treating brown hair as if it were some kind of genetic defect. Even if it were, we wouldn't treat it that way. We don't force disfigured people to get cosmetic surgery, do we?
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