这种以“选择”为由、没完没了地谈论头巾（hijab）的做法，对穆斯林女性而言是毫无根据、空洞无物的。一个人在什么意义上能够“选择”自己的衣着呢？

It is baseless and empty for Muslim women to talk about the hijab by endlessly invoking the concept of “choice.” In what sense does anyone “choose” his clothes?

西方女性天真地以为，自己的衣橱是自由独立选择的结果；然而，尽管如此相信，绝大多数服饰却“恰好”落在当下时尚的狭窄范围之内，受制于范思哲、香奈儿的号令，以及无穷无尽的“颜值榜”“种草榜”。她们追随这些风向时的狂热盲从（taqlid），足以让最严谨的苏菲门徒（murid）相形之下都显得懈怠了。

Western women naively believe their wardrobes to be a function of free and independent choice, yet, despite that belief, the vast majority of garb “coincidentally” falls within the narrow bounds of current fashion and the diktats of Versace, Chanel, and an interminable supply of “hot or not” lists Western women follow with a fervent taqlid that would make the most fastidious Sufi murids seem delinquent.

如果女性的着装方式纯粹取决于独立的选择，那么我们会看到风格千差万别，身体暴露与遮盖的部位也千差万别，衣服的来源同样千差万别等等。但在西方社会我们看到的并非如此，而是在各方面都呈现出相对的一致性。女性（男性当然也一样）在社会中的穿着往往大同小异，遵循着共同的裸露观念、共同的得体标准、共同的时尚观念等等。这种一致性的很大一部分来源于：大多数人的衣服都来自相同的连锁零售店。当然，颜色可能有所不同，剪裁和面料也可能有所变化，但基本主题却是人人共有的，然而人们却误以为自己所穿的衣服是“出于选择”。实际上，这不过是一种被过分夸大的个人主义意识。的确，你可能选择了穿哪种款式的衬衫，但从更大的层面来看，你并没有选择用衣服遮住胸部，也没有选择你所在地区有哪些零售店，没有选择那些批量生产、投放到这些店铺里的设计，诸如此类，不一而足。

If the way women in society dress were purely a function of independent choice, we would see widely varying styles, widely varying parts of the body exposed and covered, widely varying sources for those clothes, etc. But we don’t see that in Western society. We see relative uniformity in every way. Women (and men, too, obviously) in society tend to dress alike, abiding by shared notions of nudity, shared notions of what is appropriate, what is fashionable, etc. A big part of the uniformity is that the majority of people get their clothes from the same retail outlet chains. Sure, colors might vary, cuts, and fabrics might vary, but it’s the same basic themes shared by all, yet people are under the impression that what they wear is “by choice.” Really, it’s nothing but an overexaggerated sense of individualism. Sure, you might have chosen the kind of blouse to wear, but, in the larger sense, you didn’t choose to cover your chest. You didn’t choose the retail stores in your area. You didn’t choose the mass distributed designs that were rolled out into those stores, etc., etc.

不论人们被允许的选择范围多么狭窄，他们都会以为自己是在这个狭窄范围内行使能动性。在一个痴迷于选择与个性的西方社会里，这几乎是不可避免的。于是出现了这样一幅景象：一支由人组成的大军，穿着同样的瑜伽裤、难看的靴子、黑色夹克，戴着同样廉价的饰品，喷着同样劣质、来自同一批大众品牌的香水，用同样的化学产品给脸上化妆，样式也如出一辙；而她们却对戴头巾的穆斯林妇女说，她们受到压迫，缺乏能动性，缺少选择的自由，诸如此类。而那些戴头巾的穆斯林妇女则撰写评论文章、在采访中发声，恳求人们相信她们确实拥有选择，就像她们那些不戴头巾的非穆斯林同龄人一样。唉！

No matter how narrow a range of variation you give people, they will come to think of themselves as practicing agency within that narrow range. Given how obsessed Western society is with choice and individuality, this is inevitable. You have an army of women with the same yoga pants, ugly boots, black jackets, wearing the same cheap accessories, wearing the same low-quality perfume from the same mass distributors, coloring their faces with the same chemicals, in the same patterns, and telling Muslim women in hijab that they are oppressed, lack agency, lack freedom of choice, etc. And you have those same Muslim women writing op-eds, speaking out in interviews, pleading that they do indeed have a choice, just like their non-Muslim, non-veiled counterparts. GAH!