A single garment, not behavior, determines how Muslim women are served.

Evidence

‘It’s not only the sniggers, the pointing, the name calling, it’s also the way I am treated by shop assistants and it’s just because I wear a piece of cloth on my head. I know that if I walked out of the shop, changed my clothes, went in again, the shop assistant would have been all smiles. It’s unfair to be treated not based on who you are but on what you look like. It makes me feel upset and angry.’ (Nabeela) ‘I suffer Islamophobia all the time. — Irene Zempi and Imran Awan, Islamophobia, 262

Categorization

• SEED: An essay running the natural-experiment logic Nabeela describes — same woman, same shop, different clothes — as the cleanest demonstration that the hostility is triggered by appearance, not conduct.
• XREF: Connects directly to the reader’s published piece on moral panics over ‘immodest’ dress: here the veil functions as a class/identity signal read instantly by strangers.