It's a barbaric fashion dreamed up by small mined, insecure, hateful, misogynist men. Its got nothing to do with religion, and everything to do with treating women as less than 2nd class citizens.  It's wrong, completely counter-intuitive to fostering feminist progress.  Our gender-balanced, feminist championing Prime Minister could speak up and say to all women around the world in which he gallivants weekly, ladies, it's your body and your right to be heard AND seen.  But he hasn't got a clue.  If my daughter's husband decreed she was never allowed to show her face in public, and forced her to cover her body and face completely, I'd kick his sorry butt down the one way road.  That's how real men fight for women's rights, Justin.