I'm a woman, and I never had to "stand at the back of the church with my head covered" prior to VatII. Women were active, nuns were active, married men were active. As for the head coverings, even in the late 50s, as women stopped wearing hats in the secular world (remember, prior to this, respectable women did not even go out on the street in a city or town without a hat), this was not a vital requirement. I even heard priests preach against silly things like women pinning dollar bills or Kleenex to their heads. In other words, a headcovering was a sign of respect if you could do it, but it was certainly not as important as going to Mass. Christians are not, after all, Muslims, to whom the external is vitally important.
There were problems with clericalism (that is, some of the clergy thought they were godlets - read J.F.Powers' stories for an accurate description), but I fail to see that this has changed in any way. Except perhaps now there are more people who believe they are clergy (most of the women, married men and nuns mentioned above).
Ummmm...just as a matter of history, there was a time when women did sit in the galleries. The REALLY old churches here have HUGE galleries for this purpose, but it was out of practice before my grandmother's time.
And the thing about the hats...I wish we'd go back to it. Talk about a great way to hide a bad hair day.
LOL......I remember the nuns having extra "veils" that you could "rent" for a dime when the whole class went to church on the First Fridays....
and the nuns had ties to "rent" to the boys if they forgot theirs.....
I remember a circular doly type thing and also a triangular lacy thing that you could put on your head.....