Not long ago, an acquaintance said that her dad wears “wife beater singlet.” She referred to the ribber, sleeveless undershirt. The undershirt is also famous as an A-shirt. But due to the torrent of the #MeToo campaign in view of ever-growing molestation and oppression against women, that term should be strictly condemned.

1. Discover All About Wife Beater
Singlet

3. Not long ago, an acquaintance said that her dad wears
“wife beater singlet.” She referred to the ribber,
sleeveless undershirt. The undershirt is also famous as an
A-shirt.
But due to the torrent of the #MeToo campaign in view of
ever-growing molestation and oppression against
women, that term should be strictly condemned.
No one calls their pants “child molesters” or their hats
“cat mutilators”. We instantly find such phrases as
abhorrent and violent.
Sadly, how easily we overlook the same standards when it
comes to calling our shirts “wife beaters”.

5. Why Are White Singlets Called Wife
Beaters?

6. Because in that movie, Stanley Kowalski rapes, yells, and rages his
sister-in-law and hits his wife while wearing a sleeveless shirt.
Note:
In Britain, “wife-beater” is sometimes used for Belgian beer Stella
Artois, not the shirt.
Another hypothesis popular in the blogosphere is that a wife-beater
was coined by a Detroit man who beat his wife to death in 1947.
But this might be a myth as there’s no proof in news archives, other
than some photos from 1947, showing a man wearing a stained A-
shirt.
Connie Eble, a linguist at the University of North Carolina who studies
American slang, conducted periodic surveys with her students for
neologisms. She said that in 1995, a student submitted “wife-beater”
referring to the shirt for the first time.

7. After 2007, students stopped taking the term as
something remarkable because it was already
widely used, so they put an end to using it.
Currently, the term is shortened to plain old
“beater.”
On the other hand, a newspaper article titled “An
Undershirt Names … What?” in 2001 quoted an
Oxford English Dictionary editor that the term was
entered in the lexicon from rap, gang, and gay
subcultures. Perhaps.

8. Likewise:
C. Brian Smith at MEL Magazine said that the term
“wife-beater” came into being from a Chicago-
based clothing company named Cooper’s Inc.
A businessman named Samuel T. Cooper founded
that wool sock company, famous for introducing
people to briefs in general. Before briefs, men used
to wear long underwear, like union suits or long
johns.
Whatsoever, all these stories and hypotheses fail to
uncover the reason behind it.

9. Wife Beater Shirts in Fashion Today
Whoever coined wife-beater, wearing wife-beater undershirts
is trending nowadays for both men and women.
Because finally, it has come a long way from the previous
identity of a movie character or a terrible criminal.
The wife-beater is popular because of its thin tank top and
form-fitting that makes it perfect as an under cloth. If you
wear a tight shirt, it makes a lovely silhouette underneath,
while if you wear the wife-beater underneath a baggy shirt,
you won’t see it.
You can keep your one or two shirt buttons open without
revealing the collar. You can even open three or four shirt
buttons to show your beater.

11. Wearing the beater is a great way to show your
muscular arms when you wear it on its own.
Celebrities like the cast of MTV’s Miley Cyrus to
Jersey Shore have also worn the beater on their
own to come up with a striking style statement.

12. Takeaways
The term “wife beater” for a singlet became viral
due to various stories and hypotheses, from
Hollywood movies to Cooper’s Inc.
It’s a comfortable and inexpensive shirt that can be
used as an undershirt.
It works well when you work out and sweat in.
No matter how the A-shirt got that name, we can’t
deny the fact that it’s been among the most
commonly worn clothes by most people, especially
by men.