My Headscarf Headache

by Phyllis Chesler
Pajamas Media
January 31, 2008

http://www.phyllis-chesler.com/267/my-headscarf-headache

Excerpt:

My headscarf is giving me a headache! What I mean, is that the issue of the Islamic headscarf is a tricky, thorny one with no hard-and-fast solution in sight precisely when one is required. Just yesterday, a dear friend challenged me on this very subject.

She said: “How can you favor the state forbidding women from doing something that they want to do for religious reasons?”

A fair enough question.

My immediate response: Women’s freedom may depend upon the separation of religion and state. What one does at home or in one’s mosque, church, temple, or synagogue is one thing. But, is it wise to subsidize diverse religious expressions in a taxpayer-supported public school? Especially in the West where the headscarf is as much a symbol of jihad and women’s subordination as it is an expression of a modest, religious choice?

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