OPEN POST: Hat Pin Jiu-Jitsu and the Big Panic!

Join me in returning a handy weapon, the Hat Pin, an Edwardian lady's best self-defense, to prominence. Can you imagine how wonderful it was when a woman only had to reach up under her beautiful wide-brimmed hat and stab a would-be assailant with dark-sided things on his mind right in the neck? Take that, sir! Think of it. Strike fear in the hearts of men worldwide when women would have fashion work for us instead of against us. Sure, a stiletto to the temple is an old, tried and true; you can mash a foot into a bloody pulp with some wooden soled platforms, and you can kick the junk up their bellies with steel-toed cowboy boots, but then you have to balance and be agile and all that jazz. No, my ladies, hat pins, that's the way we will ride out this era of the incel. 

In 1901, the Suffragettes had enough of being little women objectified and bullied; besides the mailbombs and actual aggressive freedom-fighting acts of rightful protest that would come later, back then, they had long sharp hat pins, and they weren't afraid to use them. It caused mass panic and fear, which was real in the 1900s. The 20th-century woman was a new breed, and they wanted to be free to move about and not be stuck indoors like hothouse flowers. So they pushed a long sharp pin in their lovely hats and decided to explore the world, packing captivating millinery and a bejeweled hat pin. That's all they needed. Have you seen one? They are extraordinary and long and could do some damage to the soft flesh of an aggressor with a notion. 

So what's a threatened man to do? Increase the aggression. They were called Mashers, and their way to get back at these Butch Babes packing weaponry was to go aggro by catcalling, manhandling, and pushing these women around. It was a battle that simmered and boiled over, so the hat pin had to be regulated because lord knows we don't want those man-hating Suffragettes having more ways to protect themselves and or attack innocents. They agonized over lengths, sharpness, and what to do? Whatever shall we do? Women everywhere were picking up these ideas! These women were menaces!

Pearls were clutched by grown men afraid of women who only asked to vote and a modicum of equality for white women, but that's not the point. Black and brown suffragists wouldn't dare stab a white man, but the white women could, and so they did. And bravo, ladies. I would have wielded it just for fun and just stabbed a man just cause. Hey, you looking at me? Stab. Did you breathe on me? Stab. Oh no, you didn't just open the door for me. Double stab. 

The Mashers got punished, too. It was mayhem, and something had to change, and it did. Fashion was as fickle as ever. Large, gorgeous Edwardian hats went out of favor, and so did hat pins. 

It is our job, ladies. We need to revive them for Susan B Anthony! At least, that's what we will say. It will be to let out some well-aimed anger at the state of the world. We will not go back. We will not go back. But we will return big hats with exquisite, enchanting, proper pointy hat pins to favor, and this time, we might tuck a dagger in there just in case we encounter Jeff Bezos taking a stroll. Just saying. 

BTW, looking for Peckerwood's Weekly Lunocracy Post? It's RIGHT HERE.