Two interesting articles that caught my eye on this during the week:

The veil: a modesty slip for misogyny, by Laurie Penny over at the New Statesman:

In seeking to restrict the free choice of women to dress as they please, whether in a burqa, a bolero or a binbag, European governments are not protecting women but mounting a paranoid defense of their own right to determine feminine behavior.

And Veiled Threat: The many problems with France’s proposed burqa ban, by Wajahat Ali in Slate:

France should embrace its own constitution and ethos of equality by accepting its burqa-clad women as fraternal citizens who’ve earned the right to make their own choices. Any legitimate concerns that Europe has with the burqa and its Muslim citizenry require diplomacy and subtlety. But France is behaving like the Saudi Arabia of the EU by forcibly removing Muslim women’s rights with a legislative guillotine.

I am struck that both articles concentrate on France rather than Belgium, but I guess being ignored is not always such a bad thing.