Hats off, Gentlemen!

“Please take off your hats, guys.”
“Why?”
“Because gentlemen always remove their hats indoors.”
“What about the girls?
“Ladies may wear hats indoors.”
“Aw … now you’re just making stuff up.”

No, dear students, I am not making this stuff up. Those guidelines are traditional manners that used to be taught to every child from the time that s/he was knee high to a grass hopper. But people seldom wear hats proper hats, such as fedoras and berets, and the traditional manners associated with them have been lost. Utilitarian hats – baseball caps, cowboy hats – have become the norm and are often worn in places other than the ball field, the corral, and the woods. I have actually seen men wearing baseball caps at a performance of The Messiah. That is just wrong.

So off to consult Miss Manners, who writes:

"Dear Miss Manners:
Where does one wear a hat these days?

Gentle Reader:
Same as always : on the head. (Whoops. You’ll have to pardon Miss Manners, who occasionally get giddy after a full day of this sort of thing.) . . . . A lady certainly may wear a hat inside church, a restaurant, or anywhere else during the daytime. The exception is a function in her own house, where hat wearing would suggest that she had some place better to go, unlike her guests. It is gentlemen who must take their hats off indoors. . . . (Miss Manners’ guide to excruciatingly correct behavior, p.42)"

I heard recently that men’s hats are making a comeback; however, the rules for wearing them are a bit fuzzy. Men are wearing or not wearing hats indoors based on a scale of perceived formality: hats are removed in formal settings and left on in more casual ones. Miss Manners must be very perturbed. The traditional rules, though old fashioned, are clear and require no judgment calls that might lead to behavior which others find offensive. Armed members of the military may wear hats indoors. Otherwise, it’s hats off, gentlemen!