Oh, I'm reasonably sure that most people think they care about women, but how that translates into action is a very different kettle of fish. I'm sure all of the people making rape jokes and sexist comments in games and anime communities all very much like the idea of women too. From my experience, the thirstiest girl-chasers are the first ones in line to make the female members feel unwelcome.
I was talking about the hijab, a garment so harmless that my long-dead non-Muslim aunties would have been happy to have worn it out shopping at the seaside, but whatever, let's go with the burka too. Mecca is irrelevant. Orthodox religious people of all flavours (very much including orthodox Christians) are notorious for having stricter rules than less orthodox worshippers - you'll find there are places in so-called civilised countries which block women from entering entirely or make them follow special dress rules for religious reasons. Not sure why only Islam gets to be demonised for acting exactly the same way and having a similarly broad spectrum of beliefs in its ranks, and why individual women are judged for following their personal religious beliefs in a way they're comfortable with, even if it's too strict for the majority.
Incidentally, a lot of women who wear concealing dress in the UK are doing it because they don't trust the locals not to mess with them as much as their own men. I don't blame them.
By all means criticise oppression, for everyone, but telling people what they can and cannot wear is just as oppressive when it's done by non-Muslims. Banning a harmless piece of clothing is just as oppressive as enforcing the wearing of a piece of clothing. It's all just a tool to make western newspaper-readers think that we're liberating these people from a cruel regime, when from many accounts it sounds a lot like we're simply inflicting our own equally-crummy regime on them without being asked.
R
