Head scarves protect a woman from harassment rape and degradation. It’s the head scarf that gives women respect and a comfortable place in society. We’ve heard this from many women who’ve chosen later in life to cover themselves. Women like the old belly dancer Melhat Sandra. The veil saves women from the animal instincts of men in the street. It saves them the ordeal of entering beauty contests to compete with other women. They don’t have to live like sex objects, they don’t have to wear makeup all day. As the American Black Muslim professor Marvin King has already noted, if the celebrated film star Elizabeth Taylor had spent the last twenty years covered she would not have had to worry so much about being fat. She would not have ended up in a mental hospital.
Orhan Pamuk, “Snow”, 2002
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