British Prime Minister Tony Blair says the Muslim veil is a mark of separation, which makes the integration of Muslim women into society more difficult. He's right. Those who wear the veil deliberately set themselves apart.

Resident Fellow Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Many are coerced into shrouding their bodies. The veil is the visible symptom of their more comprehensive subjection. They are required to be obedient, to ask permission of their male guardians when they leave the house, often with a chaperone. These victims of force, whether they live in England or in Saudi Arabia, almost always have very limited education. They are married young, through arranged or forced marriages, and are groomed for docility. They do not appear in unemployment statistics, or any statistics at all. As ordained by their faith, they are invisible.

Those women who voluntarily choose the veil are different. Often they are literate, verbally forthright and independent. Many are recent converts--"born again" Muslims and Islamic activists who may be well integrated into society. Yet they have made a clear choice. They reject the Western lifestyle. The veil is an expression of the moral philosophy they hold and wish to impose upon others. They seek to provoke, to intimidate. In many European cities it is increasingly common to see girls, sometimes as young as 5, with headscarves tied tightly around their necks, or even little veils. They are taught to keep away from boys, from unbelievers and from Muslims who are weak in the faith--in other words, other unveiled Muslim little girls. That is precisely the purpose of the veil.

The veil also manifests division of the sexes. Women must veil; men do not. Underlying this simple dogma is a sexual morality that holds women responsible for the sexual conduct of men. Men may become aroused to sinful thoughts at the sight of a woman. For that, the unveiled woman will be punished in hell by Allah. Australia's most senior Muslim cleric, Sheik Taj Din al-Hilali, recently spoke about a group of Muslim men jailed for many years for gang rapes: "If you take uncovered meat and place it outside on the street...and the cats come and eat it...whose fault is it--the cats' or the uncovered meat? The uncovered meat is the problem." He went on: "If she was in her room, in her home, in her hijab, no problem would have occurred."

The most wicked aspect of this "morality" is the complete lack of male responsibility for male conduct. And this sexual morality clashes deeply with that of the West, which emphasizes female eroticism in fashion, music, films, advertising. Feminists may argue the merits of all this, but one distinction remains important. In the West, there exists an assumption that men are capable of sexual restraint. It is this presumption that makes it possible for us women to freely take part in public life and make our own private choices. The victim of rape in a miniskirt did not ask for it, and the husband who rapes his wife is guilty of a felony.

And what of the debate over the separation of church and state, as waged in France? No single religion may dominate the public space. Everyone may freely exercise their religion--a right not enjoyed in Saudi Arabia, Iran or Pakistan--but they may not seek to impose it on others. They may not wear "ostentatiously visible" insignia of religion in schools.

Muslim women who veil in Western societies violate all these norms. They are being immodest and invasive. They will succeed only in creating hostility. To every woman who decides to walk out the door looking like Batman and then complains of being ridiculed, I say, you are inviting it. Bear it or shed it.

Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a resident fellow at AEI.