Something that occurs to me - my father grew up in England in the 30’s - and he always wore boxers. (I grew up in Canada in the 60’s and had jockey tighty-whiteys). I never asked him about childhood, but I identify with some columnist who said “my mother bought me jockeys and seemed to assume that at some point a boxers switch would click and I would wear different underwear. That never happened.” So (at least for boys) was the PE policy based on a more ancient concept where boys wore boxers - not much different from more modern gym shorts - and for a long time the policy was never changed despite the shift to jockeys?
When I grew up, we* had* to have gym outfits. Nobody exercised in underwear. you just sat out gym otherwise. Not sure what girls did, it was an all-boys school. But also, sweat wasn’t a problem. As one comedian said, “I knew I was a man when not long after I hit puberty, my mother came home from the grocery store one week and silently presented me with a stick of deodorant.” Showers after PE was not something we did before about grade 9.
Could be. I read it in the newspaper many many moons ago.
I guess my question has to do with the history of underwear… Were boxers the typical choice for men - and boys - in Britain until the 1950’s? How about in the USA?
How the heck did the switch happen?
(And notice how the underwear industry persuaded men to make the switch back in the 1990’s?)
And yet it did. I started middle school (jr. high to some of you) 5th grade in 1971. It was the first grade where we had to “dress” for gym. The very first day the phy ed teacher made us all do it in our underwear (girls were on the other side of the gymnasium) and told us from now on anyone who didn’t bring their gym clothes would work out in their underwear. Nobody sat out his gym class. Once we knew how embarrassing that was nobody that year failed to dress for gym.
We also swam a couple of times nude. That was not coed, however. We had one of the few schools in the area with an indoor pool.
What does “vest” mean in this context? Sorry, I’m American, and to me a vest is something that’s part of formal or semi-formal wear. Are we talking a sleeveless tee-shirt or something else?
“Wife-beater” in USA slang, then, it seems like. My dad wore the tank top style undershirt, long before I ever heard the term wife-beater. I never did, as it always seemed to be ineffectual since it doesn’t cover the arm-pits. I now wear an undershirt with a dress shirt so I don’t stain the pit area of my shirts. Don’t see much other reason to wear one, so the vest/singlet/wife-beater style makes no sense to me. I actually wear the V-neck undershirt, if we are getting very specific.
For a while, the drunk wife beating lower class slob was often portrayed by Hollywood as walking around the trailer (mobile home) swearing, carrying a beer or a whiskey bottle and wearing a sleeveless tank top (and sporting a mullet and a two-day shadow). Hence the term for the shirt.
I grew up with the sleeveless tees being called “Dago tees” (offensive word for Italians, who I presume had a stereotype of wearing them.) “Wife beater” I learned much later, maybe even 90s.
I know this is an old thread but I just have to answer. I went to public school in Toronto on the late 70s/early 80s. In Kindergarten up to grade 2, if you forgot your t -shirt and shorts you had to do gym class in your underwear. Yes it was co-ed. Looking back it seems odd and younger people have trouble believing me, but I swear this is true.
At my school, doing PE in your vest and boxers was a much preferable fate to having to wear some of the “spare” kit from the stinking lost-property Box of Shame.
