If I had to be completely honest with myself, “activist” would be pretty low on my list of preferred labels. I’m more of a lover than a fighter, the kind of person to ignore problems rather than confront them like a good Bryn Mawr student. But, after hearing about the Bath and Body Works employee fired last year because of her religion, I was surprised to discover that yes, I can play the activist as much as the next girl. (In addition to writing this article, I also wrote my own blog post, created a Facebook group, spammed my email list… you get the picture.) 

 

The setting: November 2008, Hartford, Connecticut.

 

The players: Gina Uberti, sales manager at Bath and Body Works, and her new regional manager, Sandra Scibelli.

 

The plot: Uberti had worked for Bath and Body Works for eight years and had for the last six taken personal vacations on or around the week of Halloween to make religious pilgrimages to Salem, Mass. Scibelli confronted Uberti about this week-long leave, and Uberti explained that her previous boss had approved the vacation nearly a year in advance. When pressed about which religious holiday she was celebrating, Uberti divulged that she was Wiccan and was observing Samhain, considered one of the holiest nights of the year.

 

“That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard," Scibelli allegedly responded. "You will need a new career in your new year.” Adding insult to injury, Scibelli informed Uberti that she would “be damned if [she had] a devil-worshipper on [her] team,” and fired Uberti the next month.

 

Hopefully that last sentence shocked, outraged or at least confused you. Yes, it’s illegal (not to mention unethical and downright ignorant) to fire someone over religious or spiritual identity. Consequently, Uberti filed suit against Bath and Body Works last month. I’m not about to suggest that the company’s policy is to discriminate against employees. However, I wouldn’t mind seeing a boycott of Bath and Body Works until the company issues an official statement condemning Scibelli’s actions and reinstates Uberti to her previous position.

 

I’m not Wiccan myself, but I do considered myself Neo-Pagan and have for several years. Many of my beliefs and practices have germinated from Wiccan philosophy. Wicca is a Neo-Pagan religion (as Catholicism is a Christian religion) that honors both a God and a Goddess, celebrates the turn of the seasons and the phases of the moon and seeks to bring the practitioner in closer harmony with nature. Nowhere do Wiccans acknowledge the Devil, much less worship him.

 

While I don’t expect these facts to be common knowledge, I do expect someone with internet access and five minutes of time on their hands to make friends with Google and learn that no, neither Satanists nor Wiccans are particularly fond of the other group, and yes, both are sick and tired of being confused for the other. When I first researched Wicca somehow I was able to sort decent information about the religion from your basic internet idiocy, even though at the time I had little knowledge of anything but my family’s faith. This task was clearly insurmountable to Sandra Scibelli, who decided she was the expert when it came to “devil-worship.”

 

What bothers me more than the public relations blunder of one overzealous manager is the fact her ignorance is not an isolated case. Again, I’m not condemning lack of knowledge regarding what other people believe. That knowledge is dependent on one’s exposure to different religion, influenced by where and how one was raised. I’m condemning the fact that a grown woman apparently believed “devil-worship” was the only alternative to her personal faith.

 

One would think that growing up and eventually discovering Neo-Paganism in rural Appalachia would have given me similar experiences. However, I’ve been extraordinarily lucky and had never connected my experiences with the general bias against “alternative” religions until I read about Gina Uberti.

 

This past summer, I finally came out to my entire family about being Pagan and started wearing my pentacle to work over my uniform. My Samhain this year finally felt like a real celebration, spent with the close friends and family I’ve made in Athena’s Circle, Bryn Mawr’s nature-based and Neo-Pagan religious group. I’ve also been extremely fortunate to have received overwhelmingly positive responses about my spirituality from friends—and sometimes complete strangers—on this campus.

 

At any rate, I am now keenly grateful for the community I’ve found at Bryn Mawr and will keep my eye on the Uberti case—and definitely take my business somewhere other than Bath and Body Works this holiday season.