I held off on addressing this topic for days because it's the classic "easy win" subject. Note the superficiality — typical of those who've never traveled or read a sociology book — in the most popular responses on the matter. People resort to rally-style rhetoric, citing female genital mutilation and women treated as objects. Which have absolutely nothing to do with the question about the veil. But the important thing is to win consensus, right? This kind of thing creates racism. And it's shameful.
The starting point: we're all involved
The question touches something deeply embedded in the ideological clash between Islamic and Christian culture. I can't answer neutrally. Neither can you. Our matrix is Christian, even if we're atheists. Remember what Benedetto Croce said about the impossibility of escaping our Catholic formatting as Italians? We have lenses in front of our eyes that distort what we see.
My instinctive reaction
Obviously it bothers me when a woman is forced to wear a full veil. I was born in Europe in the 1980s. Those are my values. I consider the full veil unacceptable because women in my world are equal to men — sometimes smarter. Any form of personal freedom restriction physically pains me.
But then I re-read the question and force myself not to fall into the trap of easy populism. The question also asks about the partial veil. And that's where things get complicated.
Escaping the Eurocentric bubble
I've known several dozen Islamic women in my life. The first thing that comes to mind is that none of them considered the veil an imposition. Sure, they were all well-off. But aren't affluent people the most sensitive to themes of freedom and self-determination? After all, Marx wasn't a proletarian either.
So why would a wealthy, mentally free, educated Islamic woman be so attached to what I, as a European, see as a constraint? Practically all of them were obsessive about loving their veil, at least up to the chador. Obsessive. Exactly like an Italian thirteen-year-old obsessing over new designer sneakers.
Totemic simulacra
The crux of the issue is probably simple: what's the difference between the teenager who dreams of sneakers as a token of social acceptance and the woman who cherishes her khimar as a token of social acceptance? From a sociological perspective: none. They're totemic simulacra. They signal belonging to cultures and tribes.
For me, my tribes matter — marketing, chaos theory, quantitative finance. For them, religion matters. There's no difference. I struggle to accept it. As you do. But there's a reason why from inside one universe we can't imagine the others.
The voice of lived experience
A Muslim woman, born and raised in Rome to an Italian mother and Egyptian father, writes: "Nobody in my family wears the veil except me. In 2000, at 21, I put on my hijab for the first time. Alone, without a boyfriend forcing me, without a domineering father. Simply my personal choice, which nobody hindered and everyone accepted."
There's a world out there I don't understand and you don't understand. A complicated world. But cradling ourselves in our superiority will only make it harder to see clearly. Be wary of those who appeal to base instincts — in politics or on social media. It's always easy to sell by aiming low.
