Excerpts:
Debbie Lorenzana—whose mother is Puerto Rican and father
is Italian—came to New York from Puerto Rico 12 years ago. She was
21 and pregnant, and had a degree as an emergency medical
technician from a technical college in Manatí, a small city on the
northern coast. The father, she says, didn't want to have anything
to do with her or the baby. So she moved back to the States, where
she had lived in her mid-teens (pinballing between relatives'
houses and group homes), and took care of her elderly grandparents
in Connecticut. After her son was born, she moved to Queens to stay
with a friend. Then she got her first job in finance: working as a
sales representative at the Municipal Credit Union, in 2002. She
moved to Jersey City and worked long hours. She was
successful.
----
"Men are kind of drawn to her," says Tanisha Ritter, a friend and former colleague who
also works as a banker and praises Lorenzana's work habits. "I've
seen men turn into complete idiots around her. But it's not her
fault that they act this way, and it shouldn't be her
problem."
----
"It's like saying," Tuckner argues, "that we can't think anymore
'cause our penises are standing up—and we cannot think about you
except in a sexual manner—and we can't look at you without wanting
to have sexual intercourse with you. And it's up to you, gorgeous
woman, to lessen your appeal so that we can focus!"
----
She says she loved to work, and eventually was earning close to
$70,000 a year. "My ex-boyfriend says it's my Spic pride," she
says. "As long as I have two hands and two legs, and can still
walk, I will always work, so my son will have a roof over his head
and food."
And she will be well-dressed. Lorenzana is, by her own admission, a
shopaholic. She shops for her work clothes at Zara, but when she
has money, she says, she spends it on designer clothes. She has
five closets full of Burberry, Hermès, Louis Vuitton,
and Roberto Cavalli. In her son's closet, there's a row of
tiny Lacoste, Dolce & Gabbana, and Ralph
Lauren T-shirts. She says her love of fine clothes is a result
of her growing up poor—she recalls running a high school marathon
barefoot because she couldn't afford sneakers.
----
Citibank does have a dress-code policy, which says clothing must
not be provocative, but does not go into specifics, and managers
have wide discretion. But Lorenzana points out that, unlike her,
some of the tellers dressed in miniskirts and low-cut blouses. "And
when they bend down," Lorenzana says, "anyone can see what God gave
them!"
----
"It's so tiring," Lorenzana tells the Voice.
"My entire life, I've been dealing with this. 'Cause people say,
'Oh, you got a job because you look that way.' So you gotta work
four times harder to prove you are capable. To prove you didn't get
this because of the way you look. First, I'm a woman, then I'm an
immigrant, and I have my accent. At Citibank, when they were
picking on me for every little thing, I couldn't take it
anymore!"
Full article:
http://www.villagevoice.com/2010-06-01/news/is-this-woman-too-hot-to-work-in-a-bank/
GPGT (source):
