I just finished transcribing a series of interviews with British Muslim women on this very subject. One was college educated, a doctor; she sees it as an equalizer, the veil and the covering. When women go out, she says, they are judged not on their appearance but solely on their intellect etc. This is why she sees it as liberation. This particular interviewee also happened to be vehemently opposed to the hijab, forced or otherwise, because, she said, there was no directive from Allah to wear such. Hers was the only opinion I really paid a whole lot of attention to; the other seven, I would say, were more like what you're saying -- brainwashed and militantly so.
