FashBlog.com

By Melissa A. Popp

Ask someone what a "wife beater" is and chances are they will flinch. After all, who names an article of clothing a wife beater? Well, after years of being called a wife beater, the term has evolved to the politically correct form of "undershirt." Yes, a wife beater is a type of undershirt that men typically wear under their t-shirts or dress shirts in order to collect sweat and perspiration.

Wife beater is such a common term, it's even being considered for lexicon status in the Oxford dictionary. So, tell me, how can a word in the Oxford dictionary – the epitome of the English language – be bad? Well, the "f" word is in the Oxford dictionary, too…

Officially, wife beater is slang. It refers to a ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt that is typically white, though they can be found in a variety of colors now. Sometimes this style of shirt is also called an "A-shirt" in the clothing industry. They are lightweight, easily torn and stain beyond cleaning. While mostly attributed to men, more notably "thugs" and other gangster-related persons, the wife beater has grown in popularity to include women who either wear the men's version or purchase specifically fit undershirts for themselves. The term itself developed in the 1960s in New York areas such as Queens and Brooklyn for a very specific set of people as not everyone was "fit" for wearing a "wife beater." The term was very literal in both what it represents and who wears it around this time and in this place.

Eventually, the term resurfaced around 1996, the year of its first written use. This was around the same time that Hanes' A-shirt (also a type of undershirt) began circulating and gaining popularity. During this time, it developed into an almost joke of a term, with male teens wearing it, looking in the mirror and laughing at themselves while thinking they looked like a Redneck wife beater. Thus the term emerges as a way to make fun of what a person looks like in the undershirt style.

There's a lot of fuss over the term wife beater. After all, when you hear the term, the first thing one thinks of is a man beating their wife, which in all honesty, is where the conventional dislike for the word stems from the media. What started out as an innocent fad has turned into a very heated topic amongst feminists and other philosophers. The one place it hasn't been much of a debate has been the fashion industry, which tends to avoid the controversy, by simply selling the undershirt as just that: An undershirt.

How did the wife beater get such a notorious image? It's simple. Men who beat their wives wore them during several highly intense cases that were related to Americans through all forms of television, newspaper and magazine stories. This type of negativity was enough to have the term "wife beater" is completely politically incorrect when referring to an undershirt.

Many domestic abuse support groups have even gone so far as to suggest that the undershirt is the shirt of choice for wife beaters, furthering the image that the shirt is for the bad guy who is willing to hurt others for whatever reason. Many groups have vocally come out and showered their distaste for the wife beater in various media outlets going so far as to call out companies who purposefully market these shirts to demographics that are more prone to domestic abuse.

Sickeningly, many companies who make a mockery of issues such as domestic abuse have created wife beaters and other types of shirts supporting such abuse. These shirts are adorned with criminals in jail for beating their wives or loved ones, as well as sexual predators and celebrities associated with such abuse. Some companies even produce an undershirt with the term "wife beater" emblazoned on it just for men to show off that they aren't "afraid" to wear such a shirt.

Just try calling an undershirt a wife beater around someone, whether you know it or not, that has been beaten. They will speak up. Trust me, I know from experience. In fact, let me tell you a story about my experience with the term wife beater and why I will never use it in public ever again and why I encourage others to do the same.

My senior year of high school, I began wearing wife beaters as a way to either stop anyone from being able to see through a light t-shirt or as a compliment to my overalls. (Yes, I wear overalls, at twenty years of age. You can stop laughing now.) I was on my way to my journalism class, which was right after lunch, and it was really hot that day in the building. So, I stripped down to just my jeans and my wife beater, knowing that my journalism teacher would have no problem with it, so long as no administrators or principals walked in, to which I could quickly put on a sweater or my other shirt, which I still had with me in my backpack.

On the way to the class, I ran into some friends and talked to them, taking my time to get to class. My journalism teacher always stood outside the door and greeted students as they came into her class; she was very friendly, very intelligent and a very good teacher. However, when I made it to the door, she asked me why I was wearing my undershirt and I replied, "You mean my wife beater?"

I was so used to calling it a wife beater, whether it is with my friends or asking my parents to buy them for me, that it just came out. I didn't realize at the time the demeaning aspect of calling my undershirt that, it's just what I called it, and I didn't think twice saying it out loud in public around people who quite possible could've been beaten by husbands.

Luck would have it that my journalism teacher was one of those wives, now divorced. She immediately corrected me, very haughtily, which I kind of shrugged off and just went on through my day. It wasn't until I began to get to know who better that I learned her ex-husband had physically and emotionally abused her. I then understand the value of ditching the offensive terminology for the less offensive undershirt, which in all honesty, is far more accurate when it comes to what to call it. After all, it is an undershirt, a shirt can't beat a wife; so, why on earth call it a wife beater, right?

While a big proponent of free speech, there are some words I just won't use, and this is one of them. It's much different looking at the word, knowing what it means, but still using it than it is when you say the word and know somebody who lives or has lived it. Thus, I choose to exercise my free speech not to use this word at all anymore, unless doing something of this nature, such as writing about it. That is my choice, and I stick by it, as I like to think it's the right thing to do after that confrontation with my journalism teacher who also happened to evolve into my mentor and inspiration.

I encourage others not to use the terminology as it is associated with domestic abuse, and for anybody who knows anyone who has suffered those difficult times, they know that even brief mentions of potential abuse are enough to send these people over the wall into places they thought they climbed over. I learned from first hand experience that you can't just go with something, because it is popular, instead, you have to weigh what the greater good is in response to what is the current trend for the moment. Relationships you built will last lifetimes, but trends always die, no matter how popular they may seem and the term wife beater is one such trend.

While most linguists would argue that the term "wife beater" is going to be around for awhile, others disagree, especially if the negative connotation of the world is stigmatized further by those who can't stand the two words together for what it stands for when said. Sometimes even the most inappropriate words become part of the lexicon for years, decades and even centuries all because so many disassociate themselves with the true nature of these words and the true nature of the hurt behind them.

One such word, for example, is the "f" word, which isn't even acceptable in print anymore much less in public. Words such as the "f" word gather popularity, change in meaning rapidly, and become so commonplace that many people forget the derogatory nature of the word; such is the way with wife beater.

Unfortunately, this is just the way languages works, and sometimes not even the most popular slang words stay around for the long run. Other slang words have also seen this type of popularity shift. Wife beater is no different, as both the word and the meaning, should have been long since dead.