Either this article is poorly researched, the study is scuffed, or both. It isn’t the uniform but the type of which that the school enforces. There are plenty of schools with gender neutral uniform policies, heck the one I went to in Aus had 3 options, one of which is sports specific for all genders.
Or hardly working given how backwards and out of date the work culture is, but sure let’s make this out to be the fault of employees who are likely overworking due to low pay. An extra day off isn’t going to fix the systemic cultural issues, class discrimination, xenophobia… the list could go on and on.
Calling this innovative when Japan has yet to modernize its business practices, or admitting it’s an issue, is disingenuous at best.