A curvy 29-year-old New Jersey native was fired from her data entry position at a lingerie company because she was apparently “too hot” for her Orthodox Jewish employers.
Lauren Odes found the job at Native Intimates, which sells sexy lingerie on Fifth Avenue, through a temp agency. She worked for one week in April, during which her supervisors allegedly told her, “You are just too hot for this office. Maybe you should wear your boyfriend’s T-shirt and sweatpants.”
Odes claims her supervisors suggested she tape down her breasts to make them appear smaller.
“It was very shocking, very humiliating,” Odes told the New York Post. “It was a crazy experience, unlike anything I’ve ever been through.”
Odes has filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
On her final day, Odes arrived to work wearing a form-fitting black dress. Her supervisors warned her that the company’s Orthodox Jewish owners disapproved of her appearance, Odes’s lawyer Gloria Allred said.
Odes says her supervisors told her she should either wear a large bath robe over her outfit or buy a completely new, looser outfit. Odes says she recorded a female supervisor saying she would have to change Odes’s hair and lips because they were “too fresh.”
Odes was fired over the phone when she was shopping to buy a new outfit.
“I felt completely humiliated,” Odes told CBS New York. “We should not be judged by the size of our breasts or the shape of our body.”
Allred is asking the EEOC to investigate the case.
“I do not feel any employer has the right to impose their religious belief on me when I’m working in a business that is not a synagogue,” Odes told CBS.