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We were surprised the day, nearly a year ago, our daughter came home from school wearing a headscarf.

Surprised because we hadn’t discussed her doing so; her mum had neither asked her to, encouraged her to, let alone put pressure on her to do so.

Surprising, too, because none of her closest friends at school are Muslim. There are other girls at her school who also wear the headscarf, but she’s not friends with any of them.

Most surprising though because our daughter is not exactly what you’d call religious. Yes, she can be kind and caring at times, though less so at home, but she has little enthusiasm for any other outward manifestation of faith.

She dislikes attending our local mosque, much less attending any kind of event or course there. The suggestion she might like to is usually met by rolling eyes and derision.

So mum and dad are left scratching their heads. Dad, who is more enamored by the spiritual dimensions of faith, would much rather see good manners and conduct prioritised over anything else, but mum would say, “Don’t discourage her.”

But in the end, perhaps we assume too much. Because it is often a marker of religion, we assume it has something to do with faith, but for her it may serve a completely different purpose altogether.

Enter boys. Not nice boys, kind boys, respectful boys. But the generic boy often encountered at school, with leering gaze and a sense of entitlement, who when spurned responds with that cutting denunciation: “You’re such a bitch.”

Could our daughter’s headscarf be a self-defence mechanism signifying back off? Lower your gaze, go away, leave me alone, I’m not interested. Could it be a way of escaping all of those awkward encounters with presumptuous boys who believe that whatever they want they should get?

Certainly, in my time, despite my woeful lack of knowledge of other cultures, I had a clear understanding that Muslim girls did not have boyfriends. Indeed, when once moved to respond to the youthful call of my heart, it was the first enquiry I made of friends: “Is she Muslim?” knowing that if she was it would have been a lost cause from the get-go.

Teenage boys, unfortunately, are often idiots, presumptuous about the young women in their midst. Popular culture presents a hopeless caricature of relationships most have no hope of emulating.

Just as many girls are getting serious about their studies, thinking it paramount to securing a bountiful future, the minds of many of the boys around then are becoming fixated with finding a girlfriend, their studies of no concern.

For many girls, the unwanted attention of boys is a persistent annoyance at school, by now all too accustomed to misogyny and verbal abuse. The young man apparently spurned comes to see himself as involuntarily celibate, and so rages all the more, “You’re such a bitch.”

Yes, boys have said this to our daughter too. So what a marvelously inventive response is hers, to attempt to curtail unwanted attention at source. Without even opening her mouth she has sent a clear message to the boys around her. I’m not interested.

No doubt, in time, all of this will change. One day she will want to pursue a relationship of her own, hopefully with a kind young man, respectful of women, who knew that patience was on his side.

In my own time, I encountered a self-defense mechanism of another kind, though I didn’t understand it then. To me, it just felt like I was perpetually being victimised by others. It took me years to understand those moments and realise the way I was treated was a response to unwanted attention.

Kudos to our daughter for choosing a kinder, more creative response to dealing with the weirdos in her midst. Hopefully none who cross paths with her will feel compelled to apologise thirty years later as a result.