Veiled hint

In the interests of equal-opportunity offence, here's my take on the furore over Muslim women's dress.

We are told that Muslim men in the East insist their womenfolk be modestly covered lest their loveliness inflame other males. This implies that Muslim men lack the self-control the rest of us exercise without thinking. In Western society we can be surrounded by gorgeous women in revealing clothing but the women generally remain unravished. Even by Muslim men, the ones allegedly so easily aroused.

So why must a Muslim woman living in the West cover up? It's a common observation in any large British city that many of them simply don't. They wear the same fashions as their white contemporaries, give or take a few details. If this exposed them to sexual harrassment they'd switch back to the traditional dress, wouldn't they?

Let's dig a little deeper. Imagine you are a man from a culture that likes to keep its women subservient, that insists they go nowhere unchaperoned by husband or close male relation, that carries a mental image of streets full of raving sex maniacs itching to jump on the first female exposing an inch of skin. You move to the West: your womenfolk see for themselves that local women walking abroad with hair blowing freely in the wind, legs exposed well above the knee and bosom displayed, do not immediately suffer sexual assault.

Wouldn't you, as a man, be worried? All those customs and attitudes you brought with you suddenly exposed for the myth that they are must surely cause your women to question the other restrictions you place them under.

It's not lax Western morals alone that upset the fundamentalists. It's the challenge our society offers to their preferred view of the world, a view in which women have their place and are kept firmly in it.