“When I hear or read an eloquent Muslim woman defending the headscarf or the more extreme forms of covering which, they say, are so liberating, I am reminded of that dangerous idea: the idea of complicity in one’s own repression, the state of willingly accepting and enacting what the oppressor, or the oppressive mindset, dictates….

“Tradition and religion between them – such partners – make shackles of iron. And the shackles are mainly worn by women. They are forged as much in the fires that burn down girls’ schools as in the cool conceit of those who celebrate the fact that an iron shackle can look like a piece of cloth draped over a head.”

A.C. Grayling in the Guardian, 7 August 2008