I don't think the head-scarf has ever really been a bone of contention on this site. For all of the reasons already mentioned; practicality, fashion, cultural identification etc.

However that only pertains when it is freely adopted.
My problems begin when it is imposed as representing a religious requirement that doesn't exist. When the stench of patriarchal enforcement against the wishes of the individual woman wafts like a blocked sewer.

You rightly say that women in muslim countries face worse problems than the veil. I agree. Shirin Ebadi won her Nobel peace prize for her work on this in Iran and I'd love to know which aspects of sharia she overturned. Nevertheless, the veil is the most obvious symbol of oppression whilst being the one most obviously cultural and thus most susceptible to a religious deconstruction.

So, I'm willing to keep chipping away at it.

keep to the Fen Causeway