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I came across with a phrase, “clutch one’s pearls” in the headline of the Hill (January 6).
It reads :

“Dem lawmaker: ‘Kind of odd’ for GOP to be ‘clutching their pearls’
over profane call to impeach Trump” and followed by the following
paragraph: Rep. David Cicilline (D-R.I) on Sunday scoffed at the
controversy surrounding Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s (D-Mich.) profane vow to
impeach President Trump, accusing Republicans critical of the freshman
lawmaker’s comment of hypocrisy.

I was unfamiliar with the phrase, “clutch one’s pearls,” and I found the definition of
“clutch your pearls” in Cambridge Dictionary as follows:

Disapproving to behave as if you are very shocked, especially when you show more shock than you really feel in order to show that you think something is morally bad.

Google Ngram doesn’t accommodate neither clutch your pearls or one’s pearls.

So my questions:

1. From around what time this phrase started to be in use?




2. What is the origin of this phrase?



3. Is it a popular phrase?


4. Can a man – males seldom wear a pearl necklace - use this phrase in such a way as, “I clutched my pearls when I heard Tom was fired from his office yesterday”?

The phrase “clutch one’s pearls” is always used derisively or sarcastically. Basically, it’s a put-down. It suggests a hysterical woman on the verge of a swoon. Moreover, it has an added flavor of an old-time caricature from movies of a bygone generation. Cf. Margaret Dumont in a Marx Brothers movie from the ‘30s:

You see Dumont on the left, prim and proper, ready to play the straight role to the comedians’ shenanigans. That might include shock, outrage, or even obliviousness. She might even fall on a couch clutching her pearls.

A man would never say this about himself, except to make a self-deprecatory joke. To say it about him would be tantamount to calling him a hysterical old lady (which is offensive not only to him but to elderly women as well). To say it about a woman would be a sexist put down.

Any way you slice it, utilizing that image to describe anybody is extremely derogatory.

As noted in the following article by Grammarphobia:

People have been literally clutching their pearls in shock or otherwise for a long time. Here, for example, is a citation from a 1910 issue of the Chambers Journal, a weekly magazine that published fiction and nonfiction:

• “Without being aware that I had stirred, I found myself close to the table. I drew a gasping breath, and my hand went out without any conscious volition and clutched the pearls.”

But the phrase itself became popular years later mainly as a mocking metaphor, meaning “being ostentatiously shocked by something not all that shocking,” especially if the “shock” was feigned or reflected outdated social prejudices:

• a gay character on the Fox TV show In Living Color is responsible for the earliest example of the usage mentioned in discussions over the last six months on the American Dialect Society’s Linguist List.




• In an April 15, 1990, sketch, the flamboyant cultural critic Blaine Edwards (played by Damon Wayans) gushes over how daring the producers were to cast a male actor as the female lead in Dangerous Liaisons.




• When told that Glenn Close is actually a woman, Edwards squeals in mock shock and says, “Well, clutch the pearls! What a sneaky thing to do.”

As suggested in the following extract, the expression is now dated and its usage has largely declined in recent years:

Judging from the instances of “clutch the pearls” and “pearl clutching” that I found in a Nexis search, the expression showed up only periodically through about 2004, almost always as a pun about wealthy women and literal pearls. Take a 2000 episode of World News Tonight in which co-anchor Alison Stewart said there was “a lot of pearl-clutching going on” in the high-end auction business following accusations of criminal price-fixing. The expression then went largely dormant. There are only 16 Google results for “pearl clutching” between Jan. 1, 2000, and Jan. 1, 2004, though it did appear in a 2003 academic work called Speaking in Queer Tongues: Globalization and Gay Language.

(https://slate.com)

• 
  

  From around what time this phrase started to be in use?

  
  
  

  It now appears in OED as a draft addition:

  
  

• Draft additions June 2018




• Chiefly U.S. to clutch one's pearls and variants: to react with shock or dismay, esp. in response to something considered immoral,
  underhand, or vulgar. Frequently ironic or humorous.

• What is the origin of this phrase?

The OED cites this sentence as in its draft. It is dated 1990:

1990 F. Ajaye et al. In Living Color (transcribed from TV programme)
1st Ser. Episode 1 Clutch the pearls, what a sneaky thing to do!

• Is it a popular phrase?

It appears to be increasing in popularity and usage.

• Can a man – males seldom wear a pearl necklace - use this phrase in
  such a way as, “I clutched my pearls when I heard Tom was fired from
  his office yesterday”?

It's gender neutral as it is a metaphor for humorously or ironically "shocked!" In the cited article, the entire Republican party is accused of clutching their pearls!