Atheletes compete with hijab

I have nothing but respect for the women athletes who are wearing their hijabs at the Olympics

A lot of rubbish is talked about the hijab. Since France banned girls from wearing them in schools in 2004, there has been a steady stream of media stories and comment suggesting that Britain should do the same. Feminist friends tell me that the headscarves are a symbol of female subjugation, a way to deal with male lust by forcing women to cover up, and that as such, they should not be tolerated in a gender-equal society. The women who wear them, they say, have been pressured into it by their communities.

Well, yes and no. We all wear the kind of clothes we wear partly because of social pressure - and our own culture still says, for example, that it is more acceptable, and less sexual, for men to walk down the street topless than it is for women.