The Wife Beater by Gayle Rosenwald Smith
In 2001, this essay
was published in the Philadelphia Inquirer. As Smith points out, a wife-beater
is a slang term for a type of sleeveless undershirt that has become fashionable
in recent years. An Internet search for the term turned up several companies
selling "wife-beaters." Women's corresponding shirts are frequently
referred to as "boy-beaters." A Texas-based company sells adult-sized
shirts with the slogan, as well as "Lil' Wife Beater" tees for
babies. The company's website, which plays the song "Smack My Bitch
Up," features a background screen of a woman being spanked and a link to a
"Wife Beater Hall of Fame." It also offers a free second shirt to any
customer convicted of domestic violence.
Wife-Beater has two
meanings- “A man who physically
abuses his wife” semantically and
pragmatically, it can be “A tank-style underwear shirt” Pennsylvania, was the
birthplace of Gayle Rosenwald Smith. She currently practices family law as an
attorney. She belongs to both the Philadelphia Bar Association and the American
Bar Association. She mostly wrote for publications like the Chicago Tribune and
Philadelphia Inquirer, and she is also the co-author of What Every Woman Should
Know About Divorce and Custody, an essay that argues that the "Wife
Beater" undershirt is misnamed and that it praises men assaulting their
spouses. She detests the fact that it only bothers her and that people under
the age of 25 do not object to the shirt's name or what she believes it stands
for. She claims that this undershirt is equivalent to violence and that only
men who wear it beat their spouses. The essay includes a very important message
that was conveyed to all different types of people: the "wife beater"
undershirt is just a shirt and is not intended to be harmful to women or even
men when worn by women. Gayle demonstrates how common they are nowadays.
Professionals also wear them. She is perplexed by the name of the sleeveless
undershirt and believes that the negative stereotype it represents is toxic and
obvious, especially for people who have experienced domestic abuse.