T-shirt company capitalizes on domestic violence

Social justice news
May 2001

It's how you ask, not who you ask
The debate over debt relief continues
T-shirt company capitalizes on domestic violence, attracts protests
An interreligious campaign uses faith to fight for the environment
Taking on the Marlboro Man
Summit of the Americas ends with plans for free trade

T-shirt company capitalizes on domestic violence
A one-man Dallas company that sells t-shirts over the Internet has attracted vehement condemnation and angry protests from national family and anti-violence organizations. The company, Wife-Beater T-Shirts, promotes and trivializes abuse of women, they argue.

"This site goes beyond the boundaries of any socially acceptable values, and we should all be sending that message to those responsible for these products," says Rita Smith, executive director of the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (NCADV), a nonprofit network of local and state groups serving battered women and their children.

Wife-Beater T-Shirts sells white tank top undershirts with the words "Wife Beater" printed across the chest. The 3-month-old company provides a special discount—a second shirt for half price—to customers who can prove they have abused their wives. Court records, restraining orders, and probation officers’ phone numbers are all acceptable proof; the company says photographs are not sufficient. For infants it makes tops that read "Li’l Wife Beater".

Company owner James Doolin says the association of the tank top shirts with the term "wife beater" comes from the reality television show Cops. Most of the men arrested for domestic violence wore white undershirts, he explains.

"It’s just a fashion trend for high school, college guys," Doolin says. "The site is a humorous site; it’s not meant to condone violence."

But Dads and Daughters, a national organization founded to improve the relationships between fathers and daughters, doesn’t see it that way. It has launched a protest of Wife-Beater T-Shirts in hopes of shutting down the company.

"Wife-Beater must immediately stop selling these shirts," says Joe Kelly, Dads and Daughters executive director. "They convey a woeful lack of understanding about the horrendous price our families—especially our children—pay for domestic violence."

Both Dads and Daughters and the NCADV are asking the public to complain to Wife-Beater T-Shirts and demand the halt of its sales. Dads and Daughters has also asked the Internet Service Provider hosting the company’s web page, ValueWeb.net, to take down the Wife-Beater T-Shirts site. So far it hasn’t received a substantive response, Kelly says.

The two groups caution people not to visit the Wife-Beaters web site. "We don’t want to drive up the number of hits they have," Kelly says.

Doolin isn’t concerned about the protests his company attracts. "It helps promote the web site," he explains. Overall he thinks the attention has produced "a positive effect" and he has no plans to close.

Kelly isn’t surprised. "We know we’re not going to win them all," he says, but Dads and Daughters will continue its protest. "The biggest thing is raising awareness that there are people out there willing to make money off the most horrible things—destroying our children’s self esteem and mocking rape and domestic violence. We as consumers have to speak up about this."—Anne Graber

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