From Jaime Rothbard, creator of the Shehugger:
12 reasons to turn wifebeaters into Shehuggers:
1. Get the conversation started
It’s likely that most people don’t mean any harm when they use the word wifebeater to describe a shirt. Maybe they’ve never stopped to examine the language they’re using. Or maybe they think it’s funny to say wifebeater. Or…
2. Place the conversation within a cultural context
I created Shehugger to increase awareness and inspire action to address a cultural problem without making individuals feel personally attacked. What would happen if we stopped saying “wifebeater” and began saying “Shehugger” instead?
3. Inspiring awareness can transform
I’m using Shehugger to make connections between how people speak, think and act. 1 in 4 women in the U.S. have experienced violence from their boyfriends, male lovers and spouses. On a global scale, the figure jumps to 1 in 3 women. Inspiring awareness is about finding positive ways to collectively problem-solve.
4. Use laughter to break down barriers
I know. This shirt I’m calling a Shehugger is a bit goofy looking. But I want to show you that it’s possible to talk about a serious issue without taking ourselves too seriously. For more on that, be sure to watch the “demo video”, Hug Life.
5. Project the Positive
Instead of showing you pictures of the problem, Shehugger points your awareness in the direction of a movement that promotes healthy, violence-free relationships. And it makes you think more about hugging, so that’s pretty good too.
6. “I am not a violent person, so I don’t see how this applies to me.”
One of the challenges we come across in this work is that people think that by being nonviolent, they are doing enough. Each of us has a stake in making the world a safer and better place for other folks. Wearing a Shehugger is a way to leverage your role as a good guy
7. Increase linkages within the movement
A key objective of Shehugger is to connect communities with the organizations that exist to serve them. In over 16 years of experience working to promote awareness, I’ve observed that shelters, organizations and often the movement itself is often alienated from the rest of society. With Shehugger, we’re creating a way for people to directly impact survivors and advocates by sending Hugs to their local domestic violence shelter and advocacy groups.
8. Boost other awareness campaigns
I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel. I want to contribute to and amplify the hard work that’s currently being done. To announce the debut of Shehugger, we raised over $7,000 and are donating 150 Shehuggers nationwide to local and national campaigns to use in their own awareness-raising work as they “see fit”.
9. Take note
When you start wearing or calling the shirt a Shehugger, what happens? Hmmmm…that’s interesting. I’d like to hear about that!
10. So you can help advocacy be more effective
Shehugger is harnessing social media to create a platform where you can share your experiences of talking about and wearing your Shehugger. We also collaborate widely with other groups and activists. You can read about their experiences on our blog.
11. Send a message that builds a movement
The tagline for Shehugger is taking violence out of fashion: in how we look at ourselves, how we interact within relationships, and how we collectively see our culture. What I love about Shehugger is that it can mean different things to different people, but the overriding message is about valuing women.
12. I don’t want to compete with life-saving organizations for ever-scare grant money
With the economic recession and the brutal budget cuts that have followed, the service-providing community has taken a huge it. All of the proceeds from Shehugger sales help provide a stable mechanism for funding Public Spectacle, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that raises awareness about critical societal issues, including domestic and dating violence.
I wear the female version of the “beater” with some regularity. I remember a period of time when they were actually called “boy beaters” in the lady’s section of a bunch of stores. I may not like either version of the existing name but it will be a long cold day before I call anything a “she hugger.” How about if we have a problem with the name we call it a ribbed shirt instead of coming up with some cutesy little name for it? Why does everything that is supposed to be pro-female devolve into cute?
That video is embarrassingly stupid. A couple of white guys from upper the ‘burbs trying to look like a couple of gangstas from the ‘hood and miserably failing. And then the broad, it is all she can do to contain the resent that seeths from every pore in her body that she has to go off to work while her no good, lazy ass boyfriend/husband mooches off her hard earned paycheck and hangs around making stupid videos about a shirt. Thanks Betty.
Cute turn of phrase, but I don’t see it catching on. Not when there are millions and millions of people using “pimp” as a positive word. Would you pimp your ride while wearing a shehugger? You know, as a “rule of thumb”?
We could just call them what they really are. Usually these so called wife beaters have ribbed texture. Those are called A Shirts.
Oh boy – the “Wife beater” label is not for the shirt. It’s pure social elitists dogma and abuse about the person IN The Shirt. It’s against a piece of clothing and not the person – It stigmatises innocent and allows the guilty to claim innocence based upon their clothing budget! In the UK it’s not a piece of clothing it’s beer – Stella Artois – having a pint of wifebeater – People who drink it are assumed to be antisocial, wife beating types – and then you get all sorts of other ideas thrown into the melting pot –… Read more »
I agree – “wifebeaters” are a put down of the person wearing them, not encouragement of domestic violence. It’s most often a put-down where socioeconomic class is involved, too, like “white trash” or “redneck”. The idea that calling these things “wifebeaters” is an approving nudge nudge wink wink at beating wives is absurd.
Actually, that type of tank was named “wifebeater” after the kinds of guys who wore just undershirts… They were considered the guys who beat their wives. Al Bundy types (though I don’t think Al Bundy beat his wife, you get the drift).
In fashion, throughout the early 00’s, wifebeater literally meant that sort of white undershirt that women wore all the time. We even shortened it to “beater” and everyone knew what we meant.
It was never an insult to the specific person wearing the top, but an allusion to the guys who originated the “style”.
I think you’re agreeing, Joanna, unless you think suggesting a resemblance to Al Bundy is generally perceived as a compliment. When you’re naming the style after the guys who beat their wives, that’s an insult to those guys because beating wives is considered a not-cool, low class thing to do. And I agree, it’s not often meant as a sincere insult to the person wearing it, but the humor is based on an insult to the class of people who originated the style, *not* on glorifying domestic violence, as the author appears to be arguing. It’s not like anyone sees… Read more »
Oh here’s the distinction – I’m saying that we’re “insulting” the Al Bundy types who originated it, not the people who wear the tanks we now call Wifebeaters.
And they’re not undershirts anymore. It’s a whole category of tank top, I own probably 6 of them. Examples:
http://www.freshbeaters.com/page/401651578
And not that I’m endorsing this site, but here’s a perfect example:
http://www.straitpinkie.com/humor/six-guys-you-dont-want-to-see-at-the-gym/attachment/the-sexiest-celebrity-wife-beater/
It was never an insult to the specific person wearing the top, but an allusion to the guys who originated the “style”. I have to disagree with this bit. I can recall several instances where the wearing of a wife beater has been added to the description of a man with the implication that he was a low class guy (thug is black, white trash is white) that attacks women. Not glorying it, just kinda saying, “Look at him, he looks like he beats women.” You may argue that it was not originally intended to be used that way but… Read more »
You guys are missing the point.
Yes, if someone says “He looks like he beats women” they’re insulting that guy.
But saying someone’s wearing a Wifebeater is simply describing their clothing. Like, “Marcus was wearing jeans, a hockey jersey and sneakers”.
It’s just that the name of the type of tank alludes to a stereotype about working-class men.
So the insult is that we assume that working-class men are wifebeaters, not an insult to the person who *now* puts on that type of tank for fashion.
Actually we are closer to agreeing than you may think.
So the insult is that we assume that working-class men are wifebeaters, not an insult to the person who *now* puts on that type of tank for fashion.
This is why I mentioned the “low class guy” bit.
(And I think the insult is both. Like how implying that a woman that wears a short skirt is a slut. An insult to women in general and to the woman in question.)
Like Danny, I’m inclined to think that you’re just agreeing with us here. The author’s point, as I understood it, was that calling those shirts “wifebeaters” somehow condones, celebrates, or otherwise encourages wife beating. I think that’s incorrect. The term, even as a joke, originated by making fun of the “people who originated the style” as low-class. Just like someone who uses the phrase “trailer trash” isn’t celebrating the spreading of refuse in and around a trailer park, someone who calls those shirts “wifebeaters” or “beaters” isn’t celebrating wife beating. Regardless, I think the term is more an insult to… Read more »
I agree with you guys, but I see her point that the casual sort of dismissive way of saying “wife beater” isn’t so great. It’s like, “oh let’s joke about violence”. That being said, I still call that type of tank a “beater”. There was a big controversy over the J.Crew “Toothpick” pant that I simply couldn’t get behind. From a fashion perspective, it was a descriptive word that distinguished it from a “stovepipe” or “matchstick” or “flare” – and it is a very visual and effective term of something being skinny all the way down, tapered at the bottom.… Read more »
You even appear to agree that calling it a “wife beater” isn’t like, “oh let’s joke about violence”, since you use the shortened version without any pangs of conscience. Maybe we’re so used to disagreeing that we reflexively deny complete agreement, just on principle. 🙂
I feel a bit like it isn’t the greatest term but not enough for me to go make a big whoop about it.
I disagree. the insult isn’t about whether the guy wearing it is a wife beater. It’s the term itself.
So if a woman wears a particular style of tank she is not perceived as a Wife Beater – and she may be perceived as either being fashionable or trailer trash depending upon context and other facts such as hair, boob size and airbrushing. If a man wears a particular style of tank she is perceived as a Wife Beater – and he is automatically seen as unfashionable and trailer trash in all contexts, unless you are Bruce Willis and making Die Hard in yet another improbable way whilst wearing yet another indestructible wife beater. We have finally found an… Read more »
Couldn’t help but stop lurking Marcus. Do you know what they think that fedora means?
//boingboing.net/2012/10/02/why-the-fedora-grosses-out-gee.html
How is this any different than labelling women for how they dress?
@ Marcus
They’re not called woman beaters or girl beaters. Most guys who beat up women are considered weak as they couldn’t fight men. I still have a rather low opinion of guys who excel at beating women and children, but would run from a man. This however refers to beating a specific woman, your wife. Are you sure that it wasn’t socially acceptable for a man to beat his wife at the time the term was coined?
Never knew that about Stella– its my favorite beer and I am not even a wife beater. As to the shirt, why don;t we call it what it is called in the title of the story– a tank top?
1) If you start to reference tanks and tops , some will raise the issue of warfare and hierarchies and there will be bloody murder over who should be on top of the tank!
2) I too like me Stella – and I have a get out of jail free card being a pouf! I can wear what I like, drink till the cows come home and beat away to me hearts content! P^)
I’ve heard the shirts referred to by a derogatory word for Italians followed by the word tee. I’ve heard that phrase used by guys 10 years younger than I and don’t think that it sparks any racism against Italian Americans. Most progressives would probably consider them privileged. It probably won’t hurt to call it what you like, but I can’t see it helping or even catching on. I’ve heard similar style shirts that aren’t as tight with more of the sides cut off referred to as muscle shirts. Since most guys who’d use the term wife beater to refer to… Read more »
So how can I get one?
Really? Calling a shirt a “wifebeater’ encourages violence against women? Kind of a stretch. And by stretch, I mean utter ridiculous.
And I tend to refer to mine as a “broadpuncher”, anyway.
Here, here. I second this motion. Absurd. Its like when the Washington Bullets changed their name to the Wizards with the belief that by doing so it would reduce gun violence in D.C. The year after the name change gun murders went up by nearly 30%. Yeah, lets change the name from wifebeater to she hugger and see if violence against women goes down. Shall we make a wager that it doesn’t. Ridiculous.
Well, it’s easier to focus on insignificant B.S. and make goofy videos than it is to go out there and do something about a very real problem. Plus, the whole concept is offensive.I grew up watching my mother get slapped around on a regular basis. I have actively worked to reduce violence against women, both in my personal and professional lives. .And I’ve even stuck my neck out and stepped into situations where it looked like a woman was at risk (which, by the way, is neither safe nor smart–or even helpful). This idea trivializes a serious problem by focusing… Read more »
I think you are missing the point entirely. It’s about raising awareness. Raising awareness begins a step at a time. We need to become more aware in our society of the words and phrases we use with regularity that belittle each other (in this case, women), that normalize violence, and that perpetuate subtle acceptance of misuse of power. Your response, and many others here, in and of themselves display the type of harsh and arrogant attitudes that need to be addressed: disagree, sure, but by using demeaning words like whistle-dicking and arrogant statements like bad videos? C’mon, where is our… Read more »