by 1988 several women now admitted to her “that they had put on the dress re- cently to avoid men’s constant harangues.” Women who had originally said they would not wear it now reported that they had “succumbed to the insistence of male family members “and growing conformity in the office.”Women reported that a variety of social pressures were making it ever more difficult to not veil. They reported feeling that veiled dress was steadily becoming “less one option among many and more the correct thing to do.” Few women naturally felt able or willing to argue that their “religion or cultural traditions are in some way wrong.” A number of the women in the group had privately conveyed to Macleod that they did not believe in wearing hijab. One older woman, for example (and older women were more likely, she found, to be openly opposed to it), had commented that “these girls can wear higab if they want, but I will never wear it. I worked very hard to be in the position I am in today...
