Sure, its shallow, but most of the girls I met at Uni wearing hijab were doing it 'cos it can look really cute - frames the face, gives you another item to accessorise, you can mix and match it with the rest of your outfit... One girl I sat next to for a while had a gorgeous black chiffon scarf with delicate beading on the hem... I wish I could find a shop that sells such beautiful scarves, and in this current climate, the guts to wear it.

Surely the recent kerfuffle around the wearing or otherwise of hijab is only going to have people clinging to their traditions further? Out of sheer bloody-mindedness

Why do I wear the hijab? First and foremost, every person wears it for different reasons and I can’t speak for anyone other than myself. I chose to wear the hijab because for me it's a reminder that there is a supreme being who I owe my life to. And that might seem a little absurd, but it's a reminder that I'm not at the centre of the universe. I certainly don't wear it to detract male attention because the hijab is supposed to be worn in praise of god not in an attempt to prevent unwanted attention, although many may wear it for that reason. Like many on the forum have expressed, men should be able to control their actions just as well as any female and any argument against this is sheer nonsense. Wearing the hijab for one's partner is quite hypocritical because essentially you're not really choosing to wear it out of devotion to god but in an attempt to please another person. And yes, I did choose to wear the hijab, indeed when I did come home wearing it, my parents were a little worried wondering whether I was ready to take on the responsibility.
And thanks for the diversity of comments.

Oh god, who has been poisoning this poor bint's mind? I'm sorry, but when I read a sentence like "representations of veiled Muslim women have permeated western feminist, racial, gendered, orientalist and religious discourses" I reach for my revolver. Who has been poisoning this young woman's brain with all this tosh? Hun, you are being so indocrinated by western "discourse" par excellence - leftist pomo cultistudi tosh.

Darl, rather than whingeing about "orientalist discourses" why don't you actually read some Orientalists. They will blow your brain in a way that the low-rent Foucault, Deleuze, and tragic Edward Said could never dream of.

You poor, poor dear. You don't know whether your Fatima or Ahmed. but you are tedious. I am tired of debate in Australia being constantly brought down by this confused Arab Muslim bints. They do not improve Australia and we would do well to alter our immigration policies accordingly.

I hope this helps.

After the tragedy of this thread thank GOD for Shakira. She rocks.

No tit f'tat I am far from typical

Q - 1. How can you follow a paedophile mohammed(cbuh), a person who took a 9 yr old girl as his 14 th wife and also took his adopted son's wife as his wife once he saw her naked? - I cant answer the question in part becoz I dont follow the guy

In addition I have no idea about the veracity of that claim - But I am sure there will be those usually white anglo saxon protestant johnny come lately Koranic scholars I referred to that will crawl out from under their rocks and quote me chapter and verse to prove it - or cut and paste in a squillion web addresses to prove M'med was a bad man and that Islam is eeevil

But how can Christians follow a god ( and or prophet if you believe Jesus was god mande man etc) who teased his most ardent follower Abraham - asking him to kill his son indeed!, or a god who is a flagrant child abuser - sent his son to die on the cross - or permits the Carlton football club to continue trading when we all know it is insolvent - or let people produce things like dancing with the stars - or a god who drowned the known world - or turned a curious woman into a pillar of salt - it is all in the spin

And even if AaaaaLLLL the bad things we wish to think about Islamism are true - what muslims wear is their business - I dont care who it offends or affronts or scares

Ahhh fraggit coach. If you're going to compare Rayann's comments to those of the sheikh hilaly, I may as well compare yours to Hitler. Of course that's extreme and stupid, but that's kind of my point.

Clearly, you're not willing to belief Islam represents anything other than an affront to your extremist christian values.

Hmmph. Sorry. I'll try and calm down for the rest of this post.

I couldn't agree more Rayann, though the only issue I have is that we don't seem to be getting many hijab-covered spokeswomen, so all we have left are those purporting to speak on their behalf.

Posting this article is a great first step, but we need vocal people out there spreading this message.
Granted, the media are more interested in attention grabbing aggressive muslims, but perhaps the sensible muslim majority needs to figure out how to attract the right kind of attention though a concerted effort. Attention grabbing ideas anyone?