As February 28 approaches, it is important to remember that this process is not merely a closed chapter in Turkey’s past. The deep scars it left on the lives of Muslim women remain very much alive. Although February 28 is often described as a “postmodern coup,” its consequences were anything but abstract. Muslim women became one of the social groups who paid the heaviest price for this intervention.

While the declared target of the coup was Muslim identity, the cost was most visibly exacted from women. The headscarf was stripped of its meaning as an expression of faith in the public sphere and transformed into a justification for discrimination. Women’s rights to education, employment, and political participation were systematically restricted. The headscarf was no longer treated as a choice, but as a “problem,” and women were pushed out of public life.

Today, the issue is not simply about being a woman. The issue is that women who freely choose to be Muslim—and to wear the headscarf as part of that choice—are still forced to struggle for legitimacy in the public sphere.

Today, the issue is not simply about being a woman. The issue is that women who freely choose to be Muslim—and to wear the headscarf as part of that choice—are still forced to struggle for legitimacy in the public sphere.

The fact that these effects are still felt today shows that February 28 is not a closed parenthesis. In recent weeks, a woman mayor was subjected to humiliating language solely because of her clothing. This incident resurfaced suppressed collective memories and traumas, clearly demonstrating that domination exercised through the headscarf continues to exist in different forms.

Today, the issue is not simply about being a woman. The issue is that women who freely choose to be Muslim—and to wear the headscarf as part of that choice—are still forced to struggle for legitimacy in the public sphere. This problem is not unique to Turkey or the Middle East. In Western societies often presented as “lands of freedom,” Muslim women are similarly subjected to discrimination, exclusion, and criminalising rhetoric.

What is at stake, therefore, is not individual preference, but a political practice of control and exclusion exercised over women’s bodies and identities. When it comes to women, faith is rarely treated as a space of freedom; instead, it becomes a pretext for intervention.

READ: Which children are worth mourning? The collapse of children’s rights in 2025

Developments in Iran make this double standard even more visible. A woman who removes her headscarf is celebrated in global media as a symbol of freedom, while a woman who covers her head by her own will is not recognised as a subject of freedom in the same way. Yet this selective narrative of freedom is not limited to Iran. A similar invisibility is evident in the context of Palestine. Palestinian women bear the heaviest burdens of occupation, war, and loss, yet their resistance, motherhood, mourning, and daily struggle for survival are largely absent from global freedom discourses.

While narratives of freedom render certain women’s bodies and actions visible, those deemed “politically inconvenient”—such as Palestinian women—are condemned to silence. Freedom thus ceases to be a universal right and becomes an image circulated through geopolitically selected female figures. This approach relegates both Muslim women who live their faith by choice and Palestinian women living under occupation and violence to the position of subaltern voices.

Yet forcing a woman to cover her head is as grave an injustice as forcing her to uncover it. In both cases, women are stripped of agency, and their bodies are turned into arenas of political and ideological struggle.

Yet forcing a woman to cover her head is as grave an injustice as forcing her to uncover it. In both cases, women are stripped of agency, and their bodies are turned into arenas of political and ideological struggle. This reveals a deep and persistent double standard that continues even in so-called modern societies.

At the same time, Muslim women’s identities are increasingly instrumentalised in political and social arenas. On social media, they are used as tools of legitimacy or visibility. Male figures who speak in Islamic jargon and pose with headscarf-wearing women, while rendering their own private lives and spouses invisible, exemplify this opportunism. Such representations do not empower Muslim women; instead, they re-objectify them, once again making women bear the cost.

READ: Back to school or back to death? The missing rights of Palestinian children

At its core, this debate is a human rights issue. Freedom of belief, freedom of thought, and bodily autonomy are inseparable rights. When the state, society, or ideological pressure groups decide what a woman should wear, these rights are openly violated. A headscarf ban and the forced imposition of the headscarf both stem from the same authoritarian mindset.

Human rights only gain meaning when they are defended not just for “acceptable” choices, but also for choices we may find uncomfortable. A discourse of freedom that defends the will of women who remove the headscarf while ignoring the will of those who choose to wear it is not universal—it is selective.

At its core, this debate is a human rights issue. Freedom of belief, freedom of thought, and bodily autonomy are inseparable rights. When the state, society, or ideological pressure groups decide what a woman should wear, these rights are openly violated.

What is needed today is not the production of images that claim to represent Muslim women, but a human rights perspective that recognises them as subjects who can speak, decide, and whose rights are unconditionally acknowledged. Women’s freedom should not be defined by the presence or absence of the headscarf, but by their right to build their lives according to their own will. Otherwise, the language of human rights risks becoming nothing more than a showcase that conceals oppression.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.

© Middle East Monitor