And Ms. Anthropia, you are correct. Why does religion get a free pass and special rights?

Dar Miss Gorman,

Among things-one-could-do that you left unmentioned is learning the difference between a noun and a verb. check your dang HEADLINE.

I have'nt read the letters yet and won't, I expect.

Do you women at Broadsheet even LOOK at this stuff (just plain, 9th grader-level proofreading would help) before you giddly hit "send"? No one else in any other section of Salon (let alone ANY other reputable publication) gets away with this sophomoric blogging-as-fast-as-i-can crap......and you KNOW that's true....

More interestingly?...What is the POINT of your non-issue article? So?...two women have claimed somthing? What has Macdonald's said?.....blahblahblah...I could go on....but you know this wouldn't pass the "home-work" standards of a high-school journalism class. I can assume other letter-writers will have noticed this.

quite sincerely,

david terry

Very odd. I don't really like McDonald's very much, but I have always rather admired the way the company adapts to its local environment (mostly with local favorites in the sandwich menu, but also in respecting local sensibilities). When the store first opened in Egypt, it did allow women to wear the veil, wrapped tightly around their heads and under their funny caps. Maybe in Dearborn they are adapting to local sensibilities (not amongst the Muslims, of course - although there are some Muslims who find the wearing of the hijaab to be startlingly retrograde), but to the Islamophobic sensibilities of the rest of the country. All they need is one zealous Fixed News cub reporter to go in there with a camera for the firestorm to begin.

Besides David Terry's strangely sophomoric rant about spelling and grammar (Is Broadsheet really the only place letters suffer from hasty writing? C'mon, David, at least try to not make your comments look like a petty, shrill attack on female readers.)...

I don't think this belongs on Broadsheet. McDonald's has not refused to hire WOMEN, it refused to hire two particular woman, who claim there can only be one reason why. And no one has given is McDonald's say.

The US/Europe is full of Muslims claiming discrimination at every turn, without fair hearing of both sides. (How about the Muslim woman in England who just sued because she got a job at a hair salon and then insisted on wearing a head scarf, then sued when told this was unacceptable. How about the Muslim guy who has admitted on TV to bringing friends on a plane and acting strangely ON PURPOSE so they would be regarded as suspicious and get removed form the flight, so they could turn around and sue. There's more where that came from...)

I'm not saying they never suffer discrimination. I'm saying there are also a lot of fakers out there, and we shouldn't encourage them by blindly trumpeting their claims without so much as a little research. I'm saying that this whole story is a shoddy one-sided piece, that isn't even on the right blog. I'm disappointed Broadsheet.

"Two women from a sexist, homophobic, supremacist religion engaged in an act of rank superstition with grossly inegalitarian meaning can't get a job at a McDonald's."

They were Orthodox Jews?

I've seen hijabs at my Dunkin' Donuts in Brooklyn--I find it hard to believe that if safety is really the issue, there isn't some kind of precedent for how to work that out. But I am curious as to what the restaurant's side of the story is.

The article assumes that the girls weren't hired because of the head scarf, which may or may not be true. Then, in comments, readers go on to assume that the girls may have been: illegal; the victims of conservatism; faking; or just plain ignorant for wearing scarves in the first place.

I call myself an American Muslim, which means (to me, at least) that I was born in the U.S. of non-Muslim, American parents and decided as an adult to accept Islam and wear a scarf. Even though I have a Ph.D. (Social Science Education), people have assumed that I: do not speak English; am too stupid to understand what they're talking about; or suffer terrible oppression at the hands of my husband and other Muslim men.

When I was a teenager, my mother taught me a cute little rhyme about the word a-s-s-u-m-e. I won't repeat it here. But think about it.

MMM: Not in this case, .

Jamilah: They might assume that you're stupid in spite of your skills at your field of study, since you've bought into a ludicrous empty promise, willingly entered the Dark Ages, and, basically, what Ms. Anthropia said. They might assume that you suffer oppression because it's hard to imagine that anyone would wear a tent willingly, and, as such, religious garb serves as a symbol of repression (and not only for women.)

When I was just a typical American teen, back in the 70s, I balked at the idea of having to wear make-up in order to get the attention of males. My dress of choice was t-shirt and jeans. In spite of the efforts of my mother and, especially, my younger sister, I didn't see the point in flashing flesh or painting my face.

Islam verified for me what I always suspected--A man should respect me for my mind, not my body. Oh, and I don't wear tents. Some slacks, a long-sleeved t-shirt or denim shirt, athletic shoes, a little scarf for my head, and I'm good to go.

Some women wear long dresses, black or otherwise. That's a personal choice. I never was much into dresses.

Hmm. More assumptions, I guess.

Not saying there wouldn't be some Muslim men who would be offended by women working and interacting with strange men, but I've seen a lot of hijab-wearing 7-11 clerks over the years. Why should a fast food restaurant be different?