University of Denver faculty member E.K. Daufin in the Rocky Mountain News, November 10, 1994:

The recent Focus article about a woman who sued her employers because they refused to accommodate her stress-related body odor ended with an unsympathetic jury foreman's quote that the trial was a "waste of time." Unfortunately, many readers may share his brutish sentiments.

As an author, feminist and spiritual healer, I think the jury's notion that the case was frivolous and their agreement with the defendants that the plaintiff should just practice minimal personal hygiene, reeks of sexism and inhumanity. Often there is the assumption that if only women would wash, we wouldn't be so musky and "unvirgin like," at least olifactorily. But plaintiff Beatrice Shaw has a real and demoralizing problem.

I became a college buddy's best friend because my yogic breathing practices made me the only one in our department who could bear to be near her when her bromhidrosis acted up. I knew no one would smell like that on purpose. As we became friends, I saw that she showered each day, used deodorant, and was unaware of her periodically horrible body odor.

She, like Shaw, only needed a loving reminder that stress had overcome her regular hygienic habits. Often we, like the jurors, are too willing to dismiss a problem we don't understand, especially if it's just another case of an "unclean woman."

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