This is not the first time such a "compromise" has been made.

In Italy, a 5-star hotel in Venice also reached a "compromise" when a Muslim employee refused to take orders from the female boss. Instead of being fired as he should have been, the hotel hired a man to take orders from the female boss and relay them to the employee.

In Spain, female parking meter enforcement officers were withdrawn from an area in Palma de Mallorca following harassment from members of a local mosque who insisted that only men should work there. The women were replaced with an exclusively male team.

Women everywhere should care about this — as does anyone who does not want to see the advances of women put in to reverse. The very fact that non-Muslim women are expected to alter their working practices to accommodate Islamic misogynists is a very worrying development, and that such misogyny is treated as valid and respectable is even more worrying still.

Women, all women, need to be very aware that when it comes to a clash between their rights and religious or cultural sensitivity, the prevailing view is that we are not important. Islamism is on the rise across the world, and the western world is no exception. When Islamism spreads, women's rights are attacked and the rights of non-Muslim women are no exception.  

In response to the meter attendant issue in Spain, a union spokesperson said "It is unacceptable that in a free and democratic society, women are prevented from doing their job because they are women." This message needs to be shouted from the rooftops, and religion or culture cannot change its content. On the matter of women's rights and equality, there can be no exception.