With veil and without veil

I've always been uncomfortable with how, in the name of religious interpretation, women (it's always women) must cover their bodies, modify them, deform them, mortify them, and hate them so that they are no longer desired. The idea of the headscarf (we're not talking about the wigs worn by Orthodox Jews or the headscarves worn by Christian grandmothers because those no longer exist, or still don't exist) makes us uncomfortable because of what it represents. In a distant time, without exposed belly buttons, tongue piercings, bare knees, horn-rimmed glasses, diamonds in teeth, visible underwear and panties, women's hair was (and still is) a symbol of sin, beauty, and desire. It had to be covered. Orthodox Jews shave their heads (and, yes, they wear wigs). We can say, now, that the headscarf is a symbol of identity, of feminism, and of whatever is necessary, of empowerment. We can turn it around, like in the word queerAnd everything depends, of course, on the perspective—which is unique, which is her own—of the woman who accepts or desires this garment that serves no purpose (it's not a sun hat, it's not a rain boot) except to bring comfort to others. I, as with bullfighting, would make this cultural, ancestral, and infamous practice die out alone with the next generation.

But I wouldn't allow, as with sex, underage girls to wear veils. We say, of course, that prohibiting it "stigmatizes" and singles them out. True. But it's no less true—and these eyes have seen it and the teachers will corroborate it—that there are boys, compatriots, and schoolmates of the girls, who go to class without a veil, and who swim, who stigmatize them by touching their bottoms or breasts for being slobs.