Mona Eltahawy expresses her support for 'banning the face veil, everywhere and not just in France'. Surprisingly, she doesn't feel it necessary even to address the main counter-argument, let alone to answer it. Eltahawy says that 'political correctness has tied the tongues of those who would normally rally to defend women's rights' (my italics). Well, maybe it's what's got to some people's tongues. But for my part I don't give a rusty teaspoon for that. There's a more important consideration. You can find it, by omission, in Eltahawy's own words:
[H]ere we are... arguing over a woman's "right" to cover her face. What is lost in those arguments is that the ideology that promotes the niqab (the total body covering that leaves just the eyes exposed) and the burka (the garment which covers the eyes with a mesh) does not believe in the concept of women's rights to begin with.
I have no quarrel with the claim that the ideology in question diminishes women and the interests of women. But Eltahawy either hasn't noticed or, if she has, prefers not to bring out into the open, that being compelled by law or by force to do something you prefer not to, and choosing to do it because of a set of beliefs you hold - whether these are in your interests or not - are two separate things. The first is coercive and takes away a liberty of action you would otherwise have. The second is acting freely, even if imprudently or in a self-denying way. One may, of course, operate on the conviction that, knowing better than others, you’re entitled to impose your own view on them. But, as a rule, persuading them by argument and example is to be preferred. It is a central principle of a liberal society.