I'm only wondering if what a European would consider oppression is the same as what an Arab would consider to be so. In France, Muslims--including women--protested rules restricting head coverings as state oppression. When I argued the point that you are making to my Middle East history instructor (who is neither an Arab nor a Muslim), she suggested that if society were to coerce women into uncovering their heads, how would it be different from requiring women to uncover their chests? It all depends on what the naturalized cultural norm is. She also drew the analogy to neck ties for men, to which I responded that I would be the first one to burn mine in the street. That might tie into what you are saying--is someone oppressed if she does not think that she is? A slave can be conditioned to love his chains. There are millions of working poor in this country who have been trained to defend capitalism and excoriate socialism. They clearly vote against their own interests. The question then becomes, what makes us think we know any better? Are we not simply normalizing capitalist secularism and projecting onto traditional religious societies. This is an important question because of the history of colonialism supported by intellectual Orientalism.
I don't doubt that women are often oppressed in the Muslim world, but it usually has little to do with their headgear. Frankly, that was never even an issue until the British and French made it the marker for the inferior, backward, non-European society. European imperialists tried to do away with the head coverings and Arabs, including some educated women, responded but insisting that headscarves and even veils were necessary for their culture. You should read Houda Sharawi's book on the subject. It is also clear that the debate over women's clothes was almost entirely an upperclass argument. Poor women and men had far more pressing problems. In the desert, both men and women wear head coverings because they have to. When I was in Jordan and Egypt in 2012, I wore an Arabic head covering because the sun and heat was so intense. Now urban men have been deprived of that and go about their business in European trousers and shirts with bare heads, suffering in the heat. Laws like those in Iran that give most of the power in the family to the husband are far more oppressive to women than their outfits. Yes, the penalties for immodesty in Saudi Arabia and to a lesser degree in Iran are monstrous. If those rules were based on race or religion, it would be considered a crime against humanity. So it is no less egregious because they are based on sex. But most of the Muslim would is not like Saudi Arabia.
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