Former J.C. Penney employee sent home for wearing shorts purchased in career section

Former J.C. Penney employee sent home for wearing shorts purchased in career section

(Sylva Stoel/Twitter)


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SIOUX FALLS, South Dakota — A former J.C. Penney employee ignited a social media firestorm when she tweeted(Warning: linked Twitter feed may contain offensive content) out a picture of the outfit that got her sent home from work.

The clincher: She purchased the clothing in the "career" section of her workplace.

Seventeen-year-old Sylva Stoel had been working for J.C. Penney for two weeks when she walked into her Sioux Falls store wearing a blue tank top and red, mid-thigh-length shorts. Ten minutes into her shift, she said, her boss approached her, according to Today.

"He asked if anyone talked to me about dress code at orientation," she said.

Stoel claims her manager then asked her how long it would take her to go home and change her outfit — something she said was ridiculous.

"I told my manager that I thought it was unfair to send me home due to the fact that I had purchased the shorts from J.C. Penney's own career section, but he insisted that I go home and change anyways," she told The Huffington Post.

Stoel quit her job on the spot and immediately took to Twitter to call out J.C. Penney's management for what she is calling extreme hypocrisy. The female dress code, she argued, is perpetuating the very real issue of body-shaming.

"Boss sent me home for wearing 'too revealing' shorts that I bought from the store I work at in the career section," she posted, along with a photo of her outfit.

The post garnered thousands of comments and more than 2,100 retweets since its original appearance last week.

"It's blowing up," she told Today. "I'm very satisfied that people are paying attention to the cause and starting a discussion on dress codes in the workplace and at schools, how we view women."

#poll

Stoel told Mic.com that during the dress code conversation at orientation, she'd only been told that denim, T-shirts and spaghetti-strap tanks were banned. Skirts, she said, couldn't be "too short."

"I was never warned that wearing linen shorts to work could get me sent home," she said.

The issue of dress codes is one that's been debated around the country — even here in Utah. Last fall, Bingham High School students staged a walkout in protest after they claimed more than 100 girls were stopped at the school homecoming dance for dress code violations.

Many students and parents claimed the dress code was convoluted, targeted girls, and that administrators did not enforce it consistently.

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"They had them stand there in the middle of the hall and be judged," parent Veronica Pehrson told KSL at the time. "It was kind of shameful and demeaning."

In the fall of 2013, 30 students at Stansbury Park High School were denied entry to their Homecoming dance for dress code violations — most for wearing dresses that were "too short." Many of the girls who were sent home posted pictures of their dresses, sparking anger from the community and a call for a change in the code.

The fallout was so fiery that administrators ultimately held a replacement dance in addition to issuing a formal apology to the students for the fiasco.

As far as Stoel is concerned, good things are happening for women in the realm of dress codes, thanks to social media.

"It's always been an issue, but the Internet is making women feel like they can express their opinion," she told Today.

J.C. Penney would not comment on the incident.

Sylva Stoel/Twitter
Sylva Stoel/Twitter

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