A JCPenney employee was sent home by her boss for wearing very "short" shorts, which the employee had purchased from the career section of the store.
The said employee was Sylva Stoel, a blogger and self-described "intersectional feminist using the web to dish out body positivity, girl power, and everything queer," was asked by her employer how long it would take her to go home and change. She replied, "idk, probably the whole day. I'm not coming back." She has also mentioned that in the past, her co-workers had worn jeans and undershirts and they never got any complaint from the higher-ups.
Sylva, who tweets using the handle @queerfeminist, twitted her story with her 20,000 followers, pointing out to the issue with not just her own isolated incident, but the larger problem of established dress codes. She has mentioned what she accepts to be part of professional manner or dressing-ban gang attire, explicit imagery, and pajamas. On the other hand she questions everything that dictates what women can and can't wear: from shorts and bra straps to sneakers and over-sized clothes. She said, "The rules were made by people in power. If the rule only benefits the [people] currently in power and not all of society, you can break the rule." she bravely added ""Rules are rules" but when the rule is unfair we must question WHY it's a rule, WHO made the rule, and then BREAK THAT RULE."
Furthermore, Sylva told Mic. "I think the most detrimental thing about dress codes that specifically target women is that they are often defending the idea that women must dress in a way that doesn't provoke or distract men. This reasoning impossibly casts the woman as both the offender and the victim when they have done nothing wrong."
JCPenney has not yet said anything about the issue.
