E-mail updates
Follow on Twitter
Subscribe to RSS
Brendan Mcdermid / Reuters
Lauren Odes and her attorney Gloria Allred (R) speak at a news conference in New York, May 21, 2012. Odes is suing her former employer, claiming she was dismissed for dressing too provocatively.
The website for a Manhattan lingerie boutique called Native Intimates has a photograph of a well-endowed woman pushing her breasts together. So, it’s odd that an employee of the shop is claiming she was fired for being “too hot.”
But that’s exactly what Lauren Odes is alleging.
“When I was first told that I was ‘too hot’ and that my breasts were too large I was shocked,” said Odes in a statement released Tuesday. Her sexy appearance, she said, got her a pink slip from an employer who sells intimate apparel much sexier than your basic slips.
Not surprisingly her story is getting a lot of media attention thanks in part to the celebrity lawyer representing her, Gloria Allred, who held a press conference Monday about the allegations. Allred has taken on many high profile and controversial discrimination cases in her day, including the case of a banker who claimed in 2010 she was fired for being too sexy.
In Odes’ case, however, the work environment would seem a bit more conducive to a little cleavage.
Odes began working for Native Intimates on April 24 handling data entry and shipping tasks, but by May 1 she was out of a job. She alleges her supervisors told her that her choice of clothing was disliked by the company’s owner, an Orthodox Jew.
In a statement, Allred said a complaint has been filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in New York claiming Odes “was simply fired for being attractive and for not conforming to the religious strictures imposed by top management, apparently for having female body parts, despite having ably performed her professional duties.”
A woman reached by phone at Native Intimates would only say: “We’re not interested in giving a comment.”
A spokeswoman for the EEOC would not comment on the complaint.
Odes is alleging two types of discrimination: one based on gender and another based on religion.
Being too hot is not a protected category under the nation’s labor laws, but being terminated because you’re a woman or for religious bias is a legal no-no.
It’s unclear exactly why Odes was fired, but what is clear is employers have a lot of latitude in restricting what their employees can wear.
“All companies, regardless of whether they’re selling lingerie or whatever, are permitted to have and enforce dress codes that an owner sees as appropriate,” said Keisha-Ann G. Gray, an employment attorney for Proskauer, a law firm that represents employers. “They are permitted to require their employee to dress conservatively,” she noted, if it’s applied equally among workers of different genders, religions, and races.
Odes said she asked about a dress code when she was hired. She said she was told to look around and see what everyone else was wearing. "The dress varied from very casual athletic wear to business dress,” she said.
She also claimed she was wearing “very covered up attire” but it was her body that was the target of her employer’s disdain. She said that at one point a female employee suggested that she consider taping down her breasts.
Women are often held to a double standard at work when it comes to their appearance, said Anne York, associate professor of economics at Meredith College’s School of Business in Raleigh, N.C.
While a supervisor may have thought she might turn off customers, she said, a well-endowed woman would seem like the perfect fit for a lingerie business.
Parking spaces in New York City can be hard to come by, as evidenced by the 12 by 23-foot spot in Greenwich Village currently on sale for a cool million.
Leave a Comment:
The owner must be an "Orthodox Jew" in need of glasses.
I can sympathize. I've been fired for being too sexy too. Numerous times.
she looks like a very bloated Courtney Love.
And, you look like Brad Pitt, I suppose? If not, shut up, A.H.
What if I look like Jim Carrey? Can I talk then?
Attorney Gloria Allred was the key subject for Sigmund Freud’s theory of Penis Envy – the time in a girl’s life of psychosexual development when she realizes that she does not have a penis. Gloria has made it her mission in life to prove to the world that she grew one, or at least needs one.
Thanks. I can't get that visual out of my head and my brain is starting to melt.
Too hot? I think she misheard.
Please, somebody, what is hot on this girl???
I think she has a problem holding down a job and should get her sh.t together.
There has to be a lot more to this story. As a woman and a Human Resources Manager something is stinking here and now you have Gloria as your lawyer, think about it. And frankly you don't have to give an employee a reason for firing if you are an at will state but especially someone who would be considered to be in their probationary period. Your line is "things are not working out". Period. End of discussion.
As a woman I consider this type of claim to send women's rights in the workplace back to the 50's. She is digging for money, plain and simple. When she was hired the person who interviewed her saw her prior to hiring her. I see nothing wrong with her appearance if that is how she dressed for work. I've seen women in other places of business dress 10x worse. I think there is something more to the story also.
not even remotely 'hot'....
Continues to amaze me how many lawyers can get people to lie about things just so they can have a high profile case and make millions off the deal. What's even more amazing is that the court system lets them get away with it. Judges in lawyers pockets and lawyers in judges pockets - and all taking advantage of big business so the rest of the country can pay higher prices for things to make up for these ridiculous lawsuits.....
Gloria is there a camera out that you have not been in front of.
Mine, and please don't construe that as a desire it ever occur.
The purpose of this article was to make money... to sell advertisements... that's what "News" is about...
Who the hell has been lying to this beast. HOT, is not the word I would use to describe her.
Most classy lingerie shops I've been in require the sales help to dress in a classy manner the picture la Allred is holding up has the blonde dressed in a sleazy outfit that looks like someone vomited on it--and it shows her photographing herself in a bathroom mirror in preparation for suing. Bet she hired on there with that in mind. And the photo of her with Allred shows a tacky wrist tattoo. Tacky and tactless in a Jewish shop! Makes me think her usual dress was worse.
That being said, many, many ethnically Jewish women have large breasts and I seriously doubt large breasts were the issue--unless they were on display like challah loaves on a plate.
Can you motorboat a pair of challah loaves?
Once you carefully peel off the thin crust, the inside is white and wonderfully soft and pliable.
That picture is of the bathrobe they made her put on over her clothes, not how she dressed herself. I would like to see what type of clothing she is wearing underneath to see how revealing it actually was.
That being said, I doubt this is going anywhere.
Gloria Allred to skanks is like Al Sharpton is to blacks...when one whines they both come running for facetime
I love the pic of her being lead by her attorney holding a phto-look thsi is how I dress I swear I took it myself so it has to be true
Someone needs to put this woman in the same room with the tanning salon freak - who also has an unjustifiably high opinion of her appearance - and give them both a mirror. Both of them fell out of the Ugly Tree and hit every branch on the way down...
She'd better hope I'm not on that jury. She is not "too" hot. Hell, I argue not at all hot so therefore, claim denied.
What a bunch of Bull@!$%#. Gloria Allred, nothing but a parasite Ambulance-Chaser Attorney. Media Whore.
99 % of all Lawyers give the other 1 % a bad name.
Looks dont make up for being stupid and she is not that hot. puhlease