Stripper-turned-reporter files complaint against newspaper, claims discriminatory firing
A reporter who was fired because of her second job as a stripper has filed a complaint against her former newspaper employer, alleging sex discrimination.
Sarah Tressler, 30, was working as a society and general assignment reporter for the Houston Chronicle and was writing an anonymous blog entitled "Diary of an Angry Stripper" when another publication, the Houston Press, revealed her part-time profession, according to Reuters.
She said the major market newspaper fired her "because of a claim that I did not disclose on my employment application that I worked as an exotic dancer."
"I feel that women should not be denied other employment because they have worked as exotic dancers," Tressler said.
The newspaper responded to an ABC News report that it had not yet seen the complaint and could not comment.
Tressler has hired high-profile attorney Gloria Allred and filed a charge of gender discrimination with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Allred said Tressler was dancing at clubs as an independent contractor, not an employee, so she would not have had a reason to list dancing as prior employment on her job application, Reuters reported.
"Most exotic dancers are female, and therefore to terminate an employee because they had previously been an exotic dancer would have an adverse impact on women, since it is a female dominated occupation," Allred said in a statement to the news agency.
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