Richard Oster's key insight: Corinth was a Roman colony with Roman religious head covering practices

Oster's 1988 paper made two key points: (1) Corinth at this time was primarily a Roman colony, not a Greek city. (2) Romans had particular head covering practices for both men and women during worship (sacrifice, prophecy, prayer). When you factor these in as historical background, 1 Corinthians 11 makes much more sense. This is why Paul addresses both men AND women about coverings.