The Hat Pin and the Historicity of Female Rage

I’ve seen posts on social media lately stating that women of the past weaponized their hat pins, using this action to both demonstrate the historicity of female rage and as a call for a similar rebellious nature in today’s women. Since these posts never have citations, I got to wondering if there were citations to be had. Did our ancestors actually wield hat pins against The Man or is this a wishful fiction?

From 1884:

Note nothing is said about what the “youth” had done to cause the “maiden” to stab him in the thigh.

From 1919:

Again, nothing about what the man might have done to cause this reaction, just that a woman stabbed a man in his leg (the leg again!) while he was “attending a movie.” I’m sure he was just sitting in the dark, keeping his hands to himself, and she just randomly decided to stab him. *insert eye roll* In any case, now he’s calling for long hat pins to be banned.

This isn’t to say that women were completely innocent and only used their hat pins in self-defense. Apparently girls could get just as upset over their sports teams back then as any sports hooligans of today.

From 1906:

Never get in the middle of a knife fight or a hat pin fight.

Women also weaponized their hat pins – and teeth – for political protest.

From 1917:

Women protesting the Selective Draft law (the draft would have been for World War One), when confronted by police, “bit and used hat pin[s] on their captors.”

You might be wondering how women were allowed to keep these convenient weapons. What happened with that guy who wanted hat pins banned because he didn’t like the Find Out phase of FAFO?

Well, men did try to regulate hat pins. From 1910:

Representative Coudrey of Missouri tried to introduce a bill to Congress regulating hat pin length, only to be challenged for jurisdiction by the District of Columbia, which argued that hat pin regulation is a state right. Chicago already had limits on the length and sharpness of hat pins and Indianapolis “declared the long stickers deadly weapons.” San Francisco, St. Louis, and Pittsburgh were said to be considering similar measures.

Hat pin regulation happened overseas as well. From 1913:

Because of 747 cases of “authorities [acting] against wearers of the ‘sharp menace’,” the wearing of “unprotected protruding” hat pins was criminalized in Vienna, punishable by “imprisonment of from six hours to fourteen days or a fine of from 2 to 200 kronen.” One assumes these were 747 cases of hat pin violence, not 747 cases of busy-bodies with nothing better to do than report women with protruding hat pins. But who knows.

Unfortunately for men, big hats required long hat pins, and big hats were in fashion. So while they might try to regulate aspects of the hat pin, they could never fully ban them.

So there you go. Our ancestors really did weaponize their hat pins. And wield them in fights while wearing layers of clothing and long skirts.

Pretty badass.