I see loads of hoodies on males and females of various ages though primarily on the younger generation and all the faces except for my neighbor are white. I have a lovely black family that lives next door. Both the son and daughter very occasionally wear hoodies but not usually. Off the top of my head I think the only times I've seen any of them wearing a hoodie with the hood up is when it was raining. Interesting that their white friends far more often do wear them and usually with the hood up.
I, my lily white self, wear a jacket with the hood up when I have to walk the dog in the rain. Never before did it ever occur to me that wearing a hood whether on a sweatshirt or jacket especially when I had to be out in the rain would be considered detrimental to my safety. Wearing apparrel with a hood and having the hood on the head when out in the rain is very obvious good sense - people dislike being rained on - that's why umbrellas were invented. Hoodies are an obvious fashion trend particularly with the younger generation, are worn by all ages in all weathers by both genders. Anyone that believes that someone wearing a hoodie especially in the rain is a hoodlem hasn't gotten out of the house in the last ten years.
Interestingly, when I was younger hooded pullover sweatshirts were all the rage - it was considered the "jock" look. I had quite a number of them in many colors. I also had a zipper front one in navy blue and another in basic gray that had a liner of longjohn material so it was very warm. I wore them almost every single day for several years. Back then they were considered fashionable in my preppy neighborhood to be worn with a turtleneck shirt underneath in cooler weather, which I adopted (especially the silly turtleneck shirts that had a pattern of dopey cartoon characters on them like turtles, birds, hearts, rainbows, ribbons, kangaroos, turkeys... I'm mentally going through my old wardrobe circa early '80's as I had all of these (oh, almost forgot the one with the decorated Christmas trees as I had that one as well).
What's even more interesting is that I didn't like hoodies and particularly didn't like turtlenecks... I don't feel comfortable with clothing that feels like it closes around my neck, and hoodies always tangled my long hair into hideous knots. Those were my insecure years when I felt like I had to wear what was fashionable even when I didn't really like the fashion.
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