Headscarves

Bavaria has joined the dogpile on women's right to wear headscarves.

The Bavarian parliament approved the measure after Culture Minister Monika Hohlmeier argued that the headscarf was a symbol of the repression of women.

It makes me sick that they are hiding behind feminism to impose what are essentially laws restricting religious freedom. Worse, I see feminists getting all bent out of shape over this, over-intellectualizing and even justifying the headscarves.

It's very simple. The headscarves are a symbol of oppression, but it's just more oppression to ban them.

You don't combat oppression by going after women who choose to cooperate with it. You battle oppression by going after blatant oppressors, respecting freedom, and creating social structures to support women who throw off the shackles. By imposing "feminism" on women, you are trading a more severe form of oppression for a less severe one. Banning the headscarves is making women's dress as much a political football as forcing them to wear them is.

For all the dithering about fighting oppression, I find it telling that the only symbol of women's oppression they wish to attack is Muslim-specific. If they honestly thought banning these symbols would help the cause of women's equality, they would also make it illegal for women to take their husbands' names, for starters.