from www.divinecaroline.com – With unemployment rates in the double digits these days, getting fired from a job carries less of a stigma than it once did. Major corporations form and fall in the blink of an eye, meaning that presumably, most of us can expect to have our employment terminated at least once in our career. Getting laid off because your company can no longer support your salary or because you made fifty Xerox copies of your butt during business hours is reasonable, but what about being axed for posting Dilbert cartoons in your cubicle?

Firing a woman who wears a bikini to work is a reasonable step, but what about a woman who wears formfitting outfits? Debrahlee Lorenzana, a former banker for Citibank, claims she was fired for being too sexy and that before her termination, her bosses banned her from wearing turtlenecks, pencil skirts, three-inch heels, and fitted suits. After Lorenzana countered that the bank tellers in her office frequently wore miniskirts and other revealing outfits, “they said their body shapes were different from mine, and I drew too much attention,” she told the Village Voice.

Following the conference during which her bosses told her she was too sexy, Lorenzana says, she received a letter saying she was on six months’ probation for falling behind on sales targets. Despite the fact that she frequently asked them to provide her with the training she needed to complete her job, Lorenzana claims that her managers never did so, thereby forcing her to refer clients to other bankers. Even though she brought in new clients, she says, they were all passed on to her male colleagues.

After she sent several emails to Citibank’s human resources department, the company transferred Lorenzana to a different branch, to work as a telemarketer. Six months later, following her complaints about her demotion, Lorenzana was fired. She claims that the manager who dismissed her brought up her wardrobe dispute at the other branch, but not her work ethic. He told her she had to leave because she didn’t fit into the Citibank culture.

from www.nymag.com – Back in June, when a woman named Debrahlee Lorenzana claimed she was fired from Citigroup because her stunning figure and the tight clothing she enjoyed wrapping around it were just too hot for Citi to handle, the world snickered. It didn’t help that Debrahlee’s description of said figure as “Tits on a Stick” was, it appeared from her multiple television appearances and interviews, the height of her verbal abilities. But now, vaunted academia has risen to Debrahlee’s defense.

Well, not hers, specifically. But according to a study by the University of Colorado Denver Business School, attractive women are discriminated against in fields that are traditionally seen as masculine, one of which is finance.

“In these professions being attractive was highly detrimental to women,” researcher Stefanie Johnson said in a statement, adding that attractive women tended to be sorted into positions like receptionist or secretary. While the researchers found good-looking women were ruled out for certain jobs, they found that attractive men did not face similar discrimination and were always at an advantage.