In Canada the debate continues about the need in a civil, open, equal-rights democracy for everyone's face to be clearly shown when undertaking matters of gravity and law, such as swearing-in citizenship ceremonies, or more mundane matters like obtaining a driver's license. Most Canadians take offense at the very thought of coming across another person on the street who masks their face; it is, in a society like Canada's, a sign of hostility, an unwillingness to face another human being.

We receive decipherable signals when we come across other people and in passing, glance at their faces; some are hospitable to exchanges of recognition that we are all alike as human beings in the merest flicker of their eyes, others briefly pause to exchange a greeting, while others still, oblivious to the presence of others, simply walk on and that's a choice people make. The choice to mask the face, leaving only the eyes to evade contact with others is offensive in our society.

And the government stepped in to make it obligatory that people uncover their faces when they are involved in obtaining services where identification is required such as in a voting booth, or receiving public welfare, in step with Canada's social cultural conventions. Needless to say, the issue revolves around some Muslim women tending to obscure their womanly features with the use of a chador, a burqa or a niqab in the belief that this is required of them as pious Muslim women enjoined by custom to be modest in their demeanor and who carry things through to making themselves as invisible as possible.

The only thing is that by completely obscuring their features and conspicuously covering themselves, they are anything but invisible, but rather stand out glaringly in a crowd.

There's that and there's the obverse, a completely polarizing issue of young women insisting they are feminists and as such have the right to be visible in a most disconcerting manner. Call them exhibitionists, egotists, narcissists, they're young and lively, infused with enthusiasm and prepared to bare their bosoms in a declaration of war against social convention where men and women do present themselves in public in generally modest clothing.

Alysha Brilla,left, and Tameera Mohamed — along with a third sister, Nadia — say they never intended to cause a stir when they rode topless for 20-25 minutes through residential streets on a hot day.

But this is the issue that has cropped up in the last few days when a Waterloo Region trio of sisters decided on a hot and humid evening they would remove their shirts and bras to catch whatever cooling breezes they could in a three-hour bicycle jaunt. Their appearance startled residents and brought them to the attention of a police officer who recommended they restore their shirts to their upper bodies, and they refused, pointing out that it is perfectly within the law to go topless in Ontario, after a successful court challenge that took place several years ago.

He persisted, ordering them to cover up, and they resisted, claiming there was no need for them to do so. "He said, 'Ladies, you're going to need to put on some shirts'," recounted Tameera Mohamed who with her sisters Alysha and Nadia were the trio who took offence at being pulled over and admonished by an officer of the law.

"We're all feminists and we're all aware of our rights and are pretty opinionated in that regard and so we thought, 'That was ridiculous, he had no reason to stop us'. Either he lied [claiming complaints had been received and there were children in the area/and-or not being aware that what they were doing was perfectly legal] or he doesn't know, and both of those are problems, so we need to go to the police station and report this", said Alysha.

To support their contention and drive public opinion, the sisters have organized a Bare With Us "top freedom rally" for Waterloo to take place on Saturday. Claiming that they're doing their part in fighting sexualization of women's bodies. Some believe, on the other hand, that their antics are in fact further sexualizing women's bodies, and they're not wrong.

"Showing private areas in public and calling for 'normalizing' our response to flashing -- I think that's really fighting the wrong battle", Wendy Shalit, author of A Return to Modesty: Discovering the Lost Virtue, commented from the U.S.

That's quite the leap from hiding one's identity as a female from public glare, and revealing one's intimate body parts on the other end of the spectrum, and both emanating from a source identified with the Prophet Mohammad; his namesakes flouting public mores and flirtatiously (!) flaunting their private endowments, and his worshipful followers screening their gender identity from public view.