You refer to clothing worn by women due to religious reasons as "bondage clothing". So what of your fashion labels, tight uncomfortable cloths, lipstick, hair styling, etc. - surely you cannot deny that they are "bondage clothing" used to "subjugate women" in to fashion slaves...?

Fashions are set by rich corporatins in the west and with aggressive advertising they invade the poorer nations who can ill afford to waste money. And when people attempt to reject this on slaught and turn to their own rich cultures and religion for guidance on what they should wear they are attacked for wearing "bondage clothing". Is this not an insult to sisters worldwide?

Er, Observer, might it not be the case that BOTH secular Western 'sexy' fashion AND religious sexuality-denying 'cover-it-all-up' edicts bind and damage women?

Both portray the female body as a sex object, one as a sex object available to any man, the other as a sex object owned and controlled by one man. What's the real difference?

Freedom has to come from women taking control of their own bodies and images of beauty - from recognising that the female body is NOT just a sex object or a walking womb, but a tool for pleasure (dancing, eating, sport...) and work and the means by which we exercise our freedom. Why do women need to be TOLD what to wear? We can decide for ourselves.

I reject both consumerist fashion and any religious edicts, and find I am able to be comfortable in whatever sort of clothing or nakedness suits the occasion - and able not to care if what I'm wearing doesn't suit. Why is this anyone's business but my own?

I dont know why you say "owned and controlled by man" but in any case i would rephrase the comparison as follows:

One portrays the female body as a sex object owned by a consumerist fashion machine available to any man, whilst the other portrays the female (and male) body as owned by God but on temporary loan to its host with responsibilites and future accountability.

"Freedom", "beauty", and "pleasure" are not absolute terms and mean different things to different civilizations and cultures. Why cant different cultures, especially dominant cultures proped up by imperialism, not learn to accept and respect their differences rather than to try and impose its own definitions upon other cultures?

A Muslim is by definition one who strives to achieve inner peace through submission to God. Why is this wrong? Why do western feminists think so low of Muslim women that they can not accept that a Muslim woman can choose by herself to submit to God but rather insist she was forced by a man. We also have a brain and an ability to choose our destiny. When I choose to become a Muslim I submit myself to God, hijab is part of that submission. Why is my choice to be a Muslim anyone's business but my own?

If we allow the debate to be cast as hijab vs no-hijab then women end up being told what to do either way. The real point (I suggest) is the freedom to choose.

And that applies both ways. Free to choose must mean free to wear hijab in 'western' countries and free not to in Muslim countries.

The French hijab ban will not help women resisting compulsory hijab; rather it will strengthen the west-v-Muslim polarity and allow their govts to portray them as traitors.

I suggest its not quiet so simple. Please be patient as I try and explain.

As far as I know there is no country in the world which allows people to walk totally nude down the main street of its capital. Each society chooses for itself what is acceptable as the minimum coverage for both a man and a woman. There is nothing wrong with this. What is wrong is to force someone to strip down to this minimum level. As long as a person does not fall below the minimum level they should be free to dress as they please.

For example I believe its legal in some scandinavian countries for women to go topless in public (I think its Norway), but it would be wrong for a British woman visiting Norway to be forced at the airport to conform to this minimum level and be stripped of her top. I believe it would breach her human rights.

On the other hand I believe it would not be wrong for a topless women entering Britain to be asked to cover up because she does not conform to the minimum coverage acceptable for the society she is entering.

So here its not "a right to choose" whether to be topless or not - in Norway its okay but in Britain its not, and there is nothing wrong with this apparent disparity because each society is different.

So similarly I believe there is nothing wrong for an Islamic society to choose to set its minimum acceptable coverage level to conform to Islamic norms of hijab. At the same time I believe its a breach of human rights for France to force Muslim women to remove their hijab.

I hope I was clear and that you can follow the reasoning.

"So similarly I believe there is nothing wrong for an Islamic society to choose to set its minimum acceptable coverage level to conform to Islamic norms of hijab."

I think that is flawed reasoning. When you say "Islamic Society" has the right to set its own standards, do you suppose that the men and the women sat down as equals and decided by mutual agreement that men would dress in this way and women would dress in that way? Do you think that the women deicided voluntarily to wear ludicrous amounts of covering and also decided that they should be severely punished by men if they broke the code that they'd democratically decided (as in, for example Afganistan under the Taliban)?

Obviously not! So when you say "Islamic society" what you really mean is MALE Islamic society. Women in Islamic society might very well have different ideas. So what you're asking people to do is side with MALE Islamic society against the oppressed women in that society.

The same example is used to excuse Islamic country's treatments of lesbians and gays. We are told that we can't "impose Western values" on those societies and that intolerance of homosexuality is "part of their culture". Again, whose culture? Is it part of gay Islamic culture to submit to torture and execution? Have you heard a gay Muslim claiming that its part of his cultural rights to be tortured and murdered by his HETEROSEXUAL MALE neighbours. Again, obviously not! So once again, using the "social norms" and "culture" argument requires one to side with MALE HETEROSEXUAL expression of that culture against the interests of the oppressed in that culture.

So, next time you catch yourself saying "but it's part of that culture or society" ask yourself: Which part? Whose culture? Aren't we just looking at the DOMINANT expression of that culture, not the culture as a whole including the interest of women, queers and other marginalised and oppressed groups within it. What about *their* culture?