Hmmm, I had never thought of it this way.

Muslim women, it seems, can't win. In Islamic countries they may be flogged for taking off the veil; in the west they can be denied a public education or harassed in the street for putting it on.

Geraldine Brooks in The Financial Times makes a very interesting point.

She also makes it a point to mention the vast difference between growing up a Muslim woman in North America with those in North Africa.

As the mother of one nose-ringed, tongue-studded teenager explained to me: "People in this society are going to have to recognise that a Muslim woman with a nose ring can be just as Muslim as a woman with a headscarf."

And later;

For the immigrant generation, who often grew up in repressive, if not tyrannical, societies, the idea of putting one's head above the parapet and participating in public political discourse can come hard, but this is not so for the American-born, whose background noise has been the in-your-face debating style of Fox News shows and the discourteous demands of rap lyrics.

Take a look at this article. Food for thought.