Store Promotes 'Wife-Beater' T-Shirts (Apologizes)

[matcom]

<snip>



BOSTON -- Building 19, a Massachusetts-based discount store known for its quirky sales circulars, described a package of sleeveless T-shirts as "wife-beaters" in a recent sales flier.

WCVB-TV reported Tuesday that even store officials admitted that the flier went too far. It upset advocates for domestic violence victims.

"I can't say what I thought. I know what I thought, but I can't say out loud what I thought," Jane Doe Inc. spokeswoman Mary Lauby said.

The flier advertised a three-pack of men's undershirts as "wife-beaters."

"That does, you know, go to numbing and dumbing down and normalizing and suggesting that battering is a normal behavior," Lauby said.

Building 19 spokesman Jerry Ellis took the criticism seriously.

"They were right. It was awful and I am sorry it happened," Ellis said.

E-mails came into the discount store's Hingham headquarters where everyone was apologetic.

"It's a slang expression, a street expression, but we should have known better not to use it. I am supposed to read every word. Sometimes it's busy or I am lazy. We are working on a retraction," Ellis said.

http://www.wftv.com/money/7326622/detail.html#

[matcom]

1. kick

:D

[ScreamingMeemie]

2. Just because something is a "slang/street" expression doesn't make

it "okay". I had to get my daughter off using this term for these shirts. They are and will always be sleeveless T's in my house. :hi:

[Heidi]

3. We always called them "tank tops"

or sleeveless undershirts. :shrug:

[ScreamingMeemie]

4. It always worked for me. One of the things that really (sort of) cracks

me up is that MrG used to wear pre washed Levi's. You know, the kind that were really stiff and had to be hemmed up at home? I used to get them for him for $12.99 on sale. I think they were regularly 14.99. A few years back they became popular with the younger crowd. Levi's repackaged them as Levi's "Hard Jeans" and they were selling them for $49.99 and up a pair. MrG was pissed and switched to all Wranglers all the time. :hi:

[Tracer]

5. Jerry Ellis ran an apology ad today in the Boston Globe.

And it wasn't one of those smarmy "IF, IF, IF I offended anyone" apologies.

It was straightforward and sincere.

[kay1864]

6. Glad for that

I hate that term. Repulsive. First time I saw it used in (another) forum, I asked if we could call them tank tops instead.