One hundred years ago, hat pins were at the center of a fiery debate in America concerning the rights of women to exist in the same public spaces as men. This became known as the Hatpin Panic.
As women gained more independence and autonomy outside the home at the turn of the 20th century, public debate reached a fever pitch over the use of hat pins. With the introduction of the hat pin as a weapon, women suddenly found themselves with the ability to defend themselves against predatory men, called mashers, on the street and on public transportation. For the first time, women posed a physical threat to men with hat pins. But it wouldn’t be long before male lawmakers sought to limit the power these women now wielded in public spaces during the Hatpin Panic.
As a result, women held protests, organized marches and shared impassioned speeches in an effort to rebuke these imposed limits on the use of hat pins. Sound familiar? While women today fight for the right to bring predators to justice through the #MeToo movement, the source of the 1900s woman’s power while in public lay with the humble hat pin. (Via: Blurred Bylines Read more here: Hatpin Panic: How Hat Pins Upended Gender Politics in 20th Century America)
(via: Premium Internet Curation)
Yes, petticoated swashbuckler is the coolest feminist label ever!
Fact is, hatpins weren’t made that way by accident – they were INTENDED as a discrete weapon. The use of them as such had been forgotten by the manners of the time; but the only reason for that long, sharp pin to exist was as a portable and highly effective deterrent weapon of polite society – the poor couldn’t afford a hat, much less an ornate hatpin to go in it. In less-polite society, the women carried short knives, and got the point across in a decidedly more lethal fashion.
This trend wasn’t just Western, either – the Chinese and Japanese had long, stab-worthy hairpins, and Japanese housewives carried small knives called kaiken that were used for cutting a lot more than just the vegetables in the garden. Across most of the world, at some point or another, such weapons have been in common use for personal self-defence, and taken advantage of freely by women and men alike.