A Modest Uniform For Your Cleaning Help, 100% Glatt Kosher
Graphic by Angelie Zaslavsky
An avid Facebook user posted a photo of an ad for a clothing company from what we can only presume is a Jewish publication.
“Cleaning Help Cover Ups” the headline blares. Apparently, within the Orthodox community, cleaning help sometimes show up to work in immodest garb. Although the ad doesn’t specify what kinds of risque getups these lewd women wear, we can only imagine that it must involve very little cloth (which, considering that cleaning help average $10 an hour, is probably all they can afford, the advertisers might surmise).
Luckily for us, Prestige Attire has the answer in the form of a baggy, high-neck t-shirt. To be fair, many workplaces do require some form of a uniform. But this company goes a step further — printed on the right chest is a smiley face with a flower on its head and, beneath it, the tagline “Best Housekeeper.”
Beyond this blatant display of condescension, the ad mires itself further into the muck of WTFery. Along the side of the ad is a row of speech balloons filled with positive reviews from anonymous customers; highlights include: “Choosing the color from the ad herself made her happy to wear it.”
And: “She was so comfortable she forgot to take it off when she left!”
And, because it always circles back to men and their inability to act like civilized human beings: “Makes my husband and boys comfortable.”
In other words, the perfect cleaning help cover up, 100% glatt kosher guaranteed.
Michelle Honig is a writer at the Forward. Contact her at [email protected]. Find her on Instagram and Twitter.
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