I think the causation goes the other way: Women’s hats are pinned on because they’re not expected to remove them. Ultimately, the justification goes back to the Bible, where Paul interprets the same passages that Jews interpret as requiring men to wear hats and women not, in the opposite way.
There were prominent incidents where Cheney and Sanders, respectively, kept their hats on at solemn events, outdoors in the winter. Those, I can understand, because it was cold out, they’re old, and they were warm winter hats. Trump doesn’t need his ballcap, though.
All I mean is that I’ve seen tons of old movies and shows where, when somebody drops dead or goes over a cliff, all the guys present take off their hats. Popular culture presented this as automatic every time when I was growing up. As we would say in the 21st century, it was normalized. I’m a bit surprised how forgotten it is today. I guess nobody else grew up watching old movies and shows. I don’t expect anyone to still practice it, but you’d think there would be a surviving trace of cultural memory that not so long ago they used to do this.
I never watched a lot of movies but the practice was very ingrained from early childhood.
All of the adult men wore hats and took them off on certain occasions.
Especially funerals. I had a huge extended family and started attending funerals before I went to school.
All of the women wore hats as well. In fact I remember getting a new Easter hat every year that came in a big round box for storage. All of the women did wear hats to church and other formal functions.
I still have the cultural memory and photographic proof in some cases.
I’m reminded of The Sopranos scene where Tony intimidates the guy wearing the baseball cap in the restaurant to get him to take it off. I always interpreted this scene as bemoaning forgotten norms, as in the custom of taking off your hat indoors was already dying. And this was 25 years ago.
I’ve only seen one exception to this. One guy I grew up with kept his hat (a beanie) at his mother’s funeral during the graveside service. It was very understandable because it was a cold day and he was suffering from a cancer that killed him a few months later.
At Burning Man hats are common because the sun is fierce. Some years ago I happened to be near the promenade between the Man and the Temple when a half-dozen BLM SUVs with lights and sirens slowly came down the promenade.
It was a WTF moment and then the penny dropped. A few weeks before the event I had read of a BLM ranger who loved the event had died of cancer. “It’s a funeral procession,” I said and removed my hat. So did most of the people around me.
As they neared the Temple the sirens were silenced then they stopped and a woman in black flanked by rangers entered the Temple with a plaque to leave as an offering.
I was just watching the new season of Dark Winds and when they found some murder victims, Jim Chee takes off his hat. A cop, no less. Maybe I’m not crazy after all, maybe those who deny this custom are the ignorant ones.
There was a poll last year asking if you wear black to a funeral. I was astonished that nobody but me does that. That is very strange to me, to how I was brought up. Maybe I’ve outlived my time.
No, I would do that too. I don’t have a black suit, but I would wear the dark gray I have. I’ve been to funerals where people showed up looking like they were on their way home from the gym. I was appalled, just as I was appalled at Trump’s bad taste and lack of respect by wearing that hat. I saw a quick shot of the other men at the ceremony and I didn’t see a hat on any of them, not even His Majesty’s lapdog Vance.
Unless, of course, the deceased or their family request some other dress code. When my uncle died, for instance, the official dress code for his funeral was hunting garb and Steelers gear.
Having been more or less familiar with the Bureau of Land Management for a decade, during the Black Lives Matter era I was constantly having to make a readjustment reading the news. It’s rather like as a cold war veteran, when I see SovCit ‘Soviet Citizen’ is the first thing that comes to mind.
Back on topic, CNN will likely be following Fox News and becoming a bunch of lying fucks, instead of just a bunch of sensationalist fucks. Hegseth said today something about the Ellison folks can’t take over soon enough.
