Not long ago, an acquaintance mentioned that her dad wears “wife beaters.” She was referring to the sleeveless, ribbed undershirt also known as an A-shirt. I myself have used the term before — and I’ve worn the shirt plenty — but this time it stopped me cold. Given the torrent of revelations of abuse against women in the #MeToo era, the name suddenly seemed grossly inappropriate.
We don’t call our pants “child molesters” or our hats “cat mutilators.” We immediately recognize such descriptions as violent and abhorrent. And yet, we somehow overlook the same when we call our shirts wife beaters. How did such a graphically violent term insinuate itself into American slang?
Many cite Marlon Brando’s portrayal of Stanley Kowalski in the movie “A Streetcar Named Desire” as inspiration for the term. He wears a sleeveless shirt and rages, yells, rapes his sister-in-law and hits his wife, Stella. (In Britain, the Belgian beer Stella Artois is sometimes called a “wife beater,” not the shirt.)
