How can you honestly claim that Orthodox Judaism has any respect for women, with all the religious manipulation on the part of men that keeps them content as second class citizens within a third world mentality?
In the world we live in, women continue to get the short end of the stick. Whatever women’s emancipation gains on one hand seems to get taken away from the other. Working mothers almost always do more work at home than their working husbands. And when was the last time you heard a man ask someone to accompany him home at night for protection?
By covering her hair, the married woman makes a statement: "I am not available. You can see me but I am not open to the public. Even my hair, the most obvious and visible part of me, is not for your eyes."
The issue is even more baffling than you think. Most of the guidelines for prayer, we learned from a lady named Chana who lived about 3000 years ago. Yet all the dominant roles in communal prayer are given to men!