Elizabeth Dwoskin’s article “Is This Women Too Hot To Be A Banker?” is about a women being discriminated against because of her gender. Debreahlee Lorenzana is filing a lawsuit because she was told she was too hot and then they fired her for it. She dressed up like everyone else does when they go to work. She puts on her makeup and does her hair and nails. Her boss told her “because of her shape and figure, such cloths were too distracting for her male colleagues and supervisors to bear”. They told her she was not allowed to wear classic high heals or anything too tight. They told her she couldn’t wear things such as turtlenecks, long pencil skirts and shoes with 3-inch heels. Why does she have to change for the men? She is being discriminated against because she is a women and she is the one who is made to have to change or get fired.
This is shown in Douglas’s “You Go, Girl” Chapter because women in the 90s start to gain power in different areas. The work place being one of those areas. Debrahlee talks about how she grew up being raised very feminine and doing things like dressing nice and putting on make up was part of her upbringing as a Latin women. Douglas says that “enlightened sexism has become more complicated and often more virulent. While on the other end is suggests that women should be objectified and should be rendered powerless” (Douglas,131-132). By telling Debrahlee what she can and cannot do in the work environment or risk losing her job it renders her powerless. All that feminism that was brought into her life by her upbringing is stripped away from her. Debrahlee is infuriated because the male workers cannot control their sexual parts and if they look at her all they think about is sex. How is this her fault? She took pictures of women who dressed exactly like she did as proof that she wasn’t wearing scandalous outfits or purposely putting her self into these situations. Her boss also told her to come to a photo shot in his office because she should have pictures of her in conservative outfits for her court cases” (1).
Most of the time men are usually charged with sexual harassment in the work environment for saying vulgar things about the women. Debrahless’s boss took a different approach about the situation. He told her what to wear, and what not to wear. He even told her to wear certain amount of makeup so she didn’t look to “sickly” or to straighten her hair everyday. This basically has turned into harassment in general. It wouldn’t have mattered what she was wearing, her colleagues would fins something to comment about everyday. It made the work environment impossible to work at for Debrahlee.
This also reminds me of Douglas’s chapter on “reality Bites”. Douglas talks about how reality television is scripted and women are forced into certain roles. Men look at women in this stereotypical role of being, bitchy, catty, and slutty all around and this is how women “really are”. Men watch out! Men should not judge on stereotypes because a woman is beautiful. This is also seen on TV with these reality shows. One psychologist reported that she was “struck by how embedded in the show’s narrative were the common stereotypes of gender” (Douglas, 192). Men that Debrahlee worked with picked out anything they could to make sure she felt powerless. Maybe it was because she was in a strong position or was doing a better job then them? They picked on the only thing they could pretend to find offensive. Apparently, this wasn’t the first case of sexually related lawsuits that Citibank has piling up against them. Her lawyer, Jack Tucker, is the first one to say Debbie is attractive but there should be self-control in the environment. When she couldn’t do anything about her being attractive they fired her.
Douglas says that there are many quotes about women who are higher up the ladder in their jobs or just show aggressive power in their work. Words such as “bitch” or “emotional” are common ones. Also, there are words such as “manipulative” and “two-faced”. These words are each said for their own particular reason and each one is offensive as the next. There are no comments that say anything like this when a man comes into power or makes an aggressive decision. This is because “male privilege is simply the unstated, taken for granted foundation of most of this genre” (Douglas, 196). Douglas also states her top ten list of enlightened sexism action under the case of “reality”. Her number one is “Women are to be judged first and foremost by their appearance” (196). It looks like this was the reason Debrahlee was judged on. Number 4 says the women are overly emotional. So this must be the reason why Debrahlee is upset, it can’t be because she was sexually discriminated against it has to be her fault somehow.
Citibank had made Debrahlee sign a “mandatory-arbitration clauses as a condition of her employment, the case will never end up before a jury or judge” (1). She did get to tell her story to the papers and many people know about the situation. It is unfortunate on how things ended up but we now know why they made her sign that clause. Sexual cases against Citibank and have been brought up numerous times and they were setting up to cover their backs for future times as well.
In conclusion, I believe that Debrahlee was treated very unfairly and that there should be away around the clause she signed through the sexual harassment. Just because she is a beautiful women, doesn't mean that men have the right to make her change because they cannot control themselves. This makes it look like we have taken a further step back in our fight for equal rights and feminism.
Article: http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-06-01/news/is-this-woman-too-hot-to-work-in-a-bank/1/
Youtube video on it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8m_9HEKHNc
Work Cited:
Douglas, Susan. Enlightened Sexism: The Seductive Message that Feminism’s Work is Done. New York: Times Books, 2010
Dwoskin, Elizabeth. "Is This Women To Hot To Be A Banker?". The Village Voice News, 01 June 2010. < http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-06-01/news/is-this-woman-too-hot-to-work-in-a-bank/1/>
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