You see all kinds of veil, or headscarf, in Turkey. Last week I saw a woman in a black veil and tight jeans, another in a wildly multi-coloured veil and high heels and another wearing pink veil and make-up to match.
Amberin Zaman, the Turkey correspondent for The Economist, has seen a woman in a veil sporting a tight top and bare tummy. She has even seen a transvestite in a veil. She says some of the country's most feisty feminists - including women who campaign against male violence - wear veils.
When Etyen Mahcupyan rides a ferry across the Bosphorus to work at Istanbul's Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, he sees two or three couples kissing. They could be young people anywhere, except that the woman wears a veil.
Yes, there are also women in black, wearing a shapeless overgarment with only a small part of the face showing. But the kaleidoscope I saw challenged all my preconceptions.
In recent years these small pieces of cloth have become a faultline of European politics, symbolising fears of a resurgent, strident, even separatist Islam ...
Of course the headscarf is not the same as the burqa, which denies human contact by shutting off the face. Yet both are highly visible symbols of a deep, if not always admitted, Western belief that Islam oppresses women.
Turkey is not Europe, but its cosmopolitan and secular elite identifies strongly with the West ...
It is hard to share their fears. Yes, headscarfves are more visible than ever in Turkey. But here is the surprise: their use is declining. The reason more are seen is that their wearers are coming out of their homes and demanding a place in public life ...
But here is another paradox: among these apparently religious Muslims are some of the strongest feminists. They are young women whose parents moved to the cities in Turkey's huge postwar urbanisation. Their mothers work, they are educated and they want better jobs than what their mothers have.
Mahcupyan, whose foundation has studied the "scarf girls", says it is their "passport out of the family". It allows them to stay out late and tell parents they cannot be misbehaving: they are religious, after all. It also frees them from male harrassment.
"It's a very modern garment, even a feminist statement," Mahcupyan says. The wearer "is trying to differentiate herself, first from her family, then from society. She is saying, 'I'm a person, I have my own career, and this is my choice."'
The women are provoking a small crisis: their scarves prevent them from going to university. Mahcupyan estimates that a few thousand have been expelled; tens of thousands more do not apply ...
Change will come, even if Turkey shows that not all cultures modernise in the Western way. This vibrant country also shows the world that while militant Islam is a great force, the rise of women is greater. There are good reasons to believe the latter will prevail.
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