Here in the NW many, many people wear hooded sweatshirts and coats of all kinds because of the weather and they don’t have the hoodlum image but there are some areas in the bigger cities I wouldn’t wear one.
Maybe we are talking about two different things. A hooded sweatshirt has a draw string and is designed to be pulled around your face to keep out the wind (exactly like the picture JennysCool posted).
The things I’ve seen around here called hoodies are stiff, and are supposed to cover up most of the sides of your face (think the evil guy in the second episode of Star Wars, or Ms Basinger in LA Confidential that I previously mentioned). Also there are some orders of nuns that wear something like a hoodie.
That being said, what I have seen that has been called a hoodie looks kind of OK on a woman, plain flat stupid on a man.
That's exactly what I have always called them and I have been wearing them since at least the '70s. I'm a white woman in my 50s and in some weather I still wear them - especially in the winter sitting in the bleachers watching my daughter's hockey games. everyone I know wears them at some point, and there was no hoodlum image attached to them, regardless of color, until recently.
I wear hooded sweatshirts, too. But I would never wear a hoodie. I give my nieces holy heck when I hear them use that word. Why? Just because.