Brazilian Wax Refusal Gets Employee Fired

A former wax specialist at the European Wax Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania claimed she was fired for refusing a Brazilian wax last October.

Jennifer Finley didn’t feel comfortable about letting another employee wax her private parts during training, so she told the manager of the center that she didn’t want to do it.

The 35-year-old told him that she was scheduled to begin menstruating that day and anticipated a lot of sensitivity in that region. After she refused to put in a tampon and take ibuprofen, her boss fired her.

“My boss seemed a little angry,” she said. “He didn’t ask me any reasons. He wasn’t sympathetic at all.”

“No woman should be forced to have a Brazilian wax against her will and certainly no one should be fired for refusing to have one,” Finley added.

Finley didn’t let the firing go and filed a lawsuit against European Wax Center for sexual harassment, wrongful termination, gender discrimination, and retaliation.

Her lawyer, Vincent Mersich, said that Finley wasn’t aware of the Brazilian wax requirement. He said his client wasn’t just ordered to undergo a painful procedure; she was also asked to expose her private parts to her coworkers.

“It’s the sort of thing we don’t think an employer should have the ability to control with respect to their employees,” Mersich said. “They can’t expect them to be comfortable exposing their anus and genitalia to coworkers … or to perform that waxing on their coworkers.”

“Obviously, it’s part of the job,” he added. “But when you include the coworkers in the scenario, the dynamic changes quite a bit.”

According to the lawsuit, Finley believed many of her coworkers also felt uncomfortable about getting waxed.

“Several of them immediately claimed to be menstruating after Finley said the same,” the suit reads. “Finley suspected that her coworkers said this as an ‘excuse’ to get out of the exercise.”

Do you think you should be forced to get a Brazilian to keep a job?

[Image via Shuttershock]