After being asked to dress more conservatively, tape down her breasts, and then wear a figure-hiding bathrobe at work, a New Jersey woman says she was ultimately fired from her data-entry job at a lingerie warehouse for being too “hot.”
“When I first started working there, I asked what the dress code was, and I was just told to look around and see what everyone else was wearing,” 29-year-old Lauren Odes told reporters at a press conference. “So I did. The dress was very casual — athletic wear to business attire.”
Her supervisor at lingerie wholesaler Native Intimates Group International soon told Odes that her manner of dress was too suggestive for the tastes of the company’s owners, who are orthodox Jews.
“When my supervisor suggested that I tape down my breasts, I asked, ‘are you kidding me?’”
Odes said. “I’m working in a business that is not a synagogue, but instead selling thongs with hearts placed in the female genital area and boy shorts for women saying “Hot” in the buttox area.”
Odes, who is Jewish herself, has retained women’s rights attorney Gloria Allerd to file suit against Native Intimates with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission for gender and religious discrimination.
“The treatment was discriminatory, profoundly humiliating, and unlawful,” Allerd said.
The final straw for Odes came when she was told to cover up her buxom figure with a bright red bathrobe adorned with guitars.
“I felt ridiculous and extremely embarrassed,” she said.
Her supervisor offered to let her go buy an ankle-length sweater to wear instead, but Odes was fired by phone as she shopped for a sweater that would meet the intimate apparel wholesaler’s modesty mandate.