Robert De Niro in Raging Bull wearing a wifebeater

Wife beater, also wifebeater, and sometimes abbreviated as simply beater, is a slang term used in North America to refer to a singlet (a tank top style shirt) when worn as a sole, outer layer as opposed to being worn as an undershirt. This term is often seen as demeaning and is often associated with the similarly derogatory phrase "white trash". from the movie Raging Bull. ... from the movie Raging Bull. ... Robert De Niro at the Berlin International Film Festival, 1998 Robert De Niro, Jr. ... Raging Bull is a 1980 film directed by Martin Scorsese, and written by Paul Schrader, and Mardik Martin. ... Slang is the non-standard use of words in a language of a particular social group, and sometimes the creation of new words or importation of words from another language. ... World map showing North America A satellite composite image of North America North America is a continent in the northern hemisphere bordered on the north by the Arctic Ocean, on the east by the North Atlantic Ocean, on the south by the Caribbean Sea, and on the west by the... The two runners in the above photograph are wearing different styles of tank top. ... Business shirt A shirt is a piece of clothing for the trunk of the body. ... A vest is a type of mens garment. ... White trash is an American ethnic slur or racial epithet usually used to describe certain low income persons of European descent, especially those perceived as having crude manners, abnormally low moral standards, and lack of education. ...

"Guinea T" and "Dago T" are other terms for the same style of shirt; and arguably just as offensive, "guinea" and "dago" both being ethnic slurs against Italian Americans, among whom this style of shirt is stereotypically popular. An Italian-American is an American of Italian descent either born in America or someone who has immigrated. ...

The origin of the term is from the stereotype that the shirts are worn predominantly by men who beat their wives; black tank tops were often worn by Ike Turner, a notorious abuser of his wife Tina. In the 1980 movie Raging Bull, the main character, a boxer, is commonly seen wearing tank tops around the house, including in one scene where he beats his wife. Countless drunk and disorderly domestic abuse suspects who were arrested on the TV show Cops also wear such shirts. Domestic violence broadly defined, is violence within a home. ... Ike Turner (born Izear Luster Turner Jr. ... Tina Turner on the cover of her 1991 compilation album Simply the Best Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock on November 26, 1939 in Nutbush, now Brownsville, Tennessee) of African American and Navajo ancenstry. ... Raging Bull is a 1980 film directed by Martin Scorsese, and written by Paul Schrader, and Mardik Martin. ... Joe Louis and Rocky Marciano at Madison Square Garden, 1951 Julio Cesar Chavez and Ivan Robinson at the Staples Centre, Los Angeles, 2005 Amir Khan of Britain and Mario Cesar Kindelan Mesa of Cuba at the Athens Olympics, 2004 Boxing, nicknamed the sweet science and also called pugilism or prizefighting... Beating is striking more than once, in violence, beating a drum, etc. ... Marriage is a relationship that plays a key role in the definition of many families. ... COPS / CoPs / Cops are: a slang for police or police officers (Cops) an acronym for Communities of Practice (CoPs) the title of both a film and a television series. ...

Wifebeaters are also popular in the street gang culture of the United States. From there the wearing of wifebeaters spread to Hip hop culture; wifebeaters are often worn by hip hop artists in public, on stage, or in the media. Breakdancer in Ljubljana. ...

Snoop Dogg wearing a wifebeater. It has become popular among hip hop artists.

Use of the term wifebeater to describe an article of clothing (as opposed to its literal use) is relatively new, perhaps originating as early as the 1970s. Some people find the term extremely offensive, as serving to legitimize spousal abuse; while others consider it harmless or even humorous. The term has been denounced by the National Organization for Women, who say it trivializes domestic violence. "The implication is that wife beating is not viewed as sufficiently serious to lift it above the level of something that's OK to joke about," says Kim Gandy, president of NOW. Like all slang, its meaning is not known to all; so to those unfamiliar with the slang sense, wife beater will only mean a person who beats a wife. Snoop Dogg, from his appearance on the Chappelle Show This work is copyrighted. ... Snoop Dogg, from his appearance on the Chappelle Show This work is copyrighted. ... Hip hop is a cultural movement that began amongst urban African American youth in New York and has since spread around the world. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, inclusive. ... Spousal abuse is a specific form of domestic violence where physical or sexual abuse is perpetuated by one spouse upon another. ... Humour (Commonwealth English) or humor (American English) is the ability or quality of people, objects or situations to evoke feelings of amusement in other people. ... To meet Wikipedias quality standards, this article or section may require cleanup. ...

In some places, such as Australia, the term wife beater is used more specifically to refer only to a tank top, or as is it most commonly named a "singlet", that is white or sometimes blue. This definition probably comes from the fact that most underwear singlets are white, and the stereotype of a wife beater is a man who sits around in his underwear drinking and watching television. Singlet that are navy blue in colour, colloquially known as "blueys", "beaters" or "Jackie Howe" (after the legendary sheep shearer) and are the typical uniform of Australian manual labourers, and hold a place as a nationalist icon. See ute muster. White is a color (more accurately it contains all the colors of the visible spectrum and is sometimes described as an achromatic color—black is the absence of color) that has high brightness but zero hue. ... For other uses, see Blue (disambiguation) Blue is one of the three primary additive colors; blue light has the shortest wavelength range (about 420–490 nanometers) of the three additive primary colors. ... A Ute entering the Feral Ute competition. ...

In Great Britain, the term is used as slang for the Belgian beer Stella Artois. A possible origin is the famous scene in the movie A Streetcar Named Desire, where Marlon Brando's character yells "Stella!", the name of his wife, as he begs her to return after violently beating her. In British culture, Stella Artois is associated with a drinking culture in which domestic abuse may follow a bout of drinking at the local pub. Stella Artois is a Belgian lager beer that has been brewed in Leuven, Belgium by InBev (formerly InterBrew). ... A Streetcar Named Desire is a play by Tennessee Williams describing a culture clash between Blanche DuBois—a pretentious, fading relic of the Old South—and Stanley Kowalski, a rising member of the industrial, inner-city immigrant class. ...

Sources

• A Sleeveless, Ribbed White Cotton Undershirt by Booth Moore, Press & Sun-Bulletin, January 13, 2003