Jack Straw says that he is made to "feel uncomfortable" by women wearing a full veil. I feel uncomfortable too and have been wondering about the nature of that discomfort and what I should do about it.

When I walk down the street in London, or in Bristol where I live, and see a woman covered head to toe, I not only feel uncomfortable; I feel a physical sense of revulsion. I feel it inside my tummy somewhere and it makes me feel faintly sick. I usually try to suppress this feeling and walk on, but is that the right response?

To help answer this question I have been wondering about other things that make me feel the same way and how I do, or ought to, respond to them.

So let's take some examples of things I have seen on the streets - whether in Britain or abroad - that have something of this effect. A young girl with multiple rings through her nose, lips, eyebrows and ears; a muscly man with huge biceps, thick neck and garish tattoos; a pile of stinking rubbish left uncollected; a child being hit and sworn at by a parent; a woman walking head down behind a man; a beggar with filthy clothes, no shoes and open sores; a man or woman with a severely disfigured face.

In all these cases I feel uncomfortable; in some of them I feel a deep revulsion. What should my response to these feelings be?

Thinking about these examples I've concluded that they fall into two categories. First there are those which are really my problem and I should learn to grow up and get over it. The piercings, the muscles and tattoos are none of my business. The people who choose them are not seriously harming themselves or anyone else. My revulsion may be natural and understandable but it is something I have to learn to overcome. The severe disfigurement is a particularly interesting example of this kind. It is probably natural to feel revulsion, and so it is a great step forward that in modern society we have (largely) learned to overcome that damaging natural response and try to see past superficial physical differences. I know a little about this from the other side because I have a deformed hand and not infrequently see a look of revulsion on people's faces when they notice it. So in all these cases I try to observe my feelings of discomfort and then banish them.

But what about the rest? In all the other cases our feelings of revulsion have led our society to action and change. We pay to have our streets cleaned, and rubbish removed; we develop a welfare state that provides basic necessities and health care for all; we protest at child abuse and try to ban adults from hitting small children. In this way, as individuals and as a society, we make moral progress.

So into which category does the woman in a veil fall? Is it something we should learn to accept without revulsion, or is our discomfort a sign that something is wrong?

I say the latter. I say that the discomfort that I and Jack Straw, and doubtless many other people, feel is a sign of something that we can and ought to change. I feel discomfort because I am a woman too and I can empathise with the woman behind the veil. No matter that she may say she chose to wear it freely, psychologists know that oppressed and imprisoned people often do say that they choose to remain that way, whether in abusive and violent marriages or kidnaps and sieges (e.g. the Stockholm syndrome), but they are happier and freer when they get out.

There can surely be no doubt that a full veil is oppressive and dramatically curtails a woman freedom to do even the most ordinary of things.

I thought through what I did yesterday and imagined how much of it I could have done easily, or at all, in a full veil. I drove myself to Bristol Parkway station, caught the train to London, went to Broadcasting House and recorded a lively discussion (with two women and one man) for Radio 4, got back to Paddington, bought some chips and tea that I ate on the train, picked up my car and drove down to Devon to visit my 90-year-old father in hospital, talked to the nurses and doctors about his care, and drove my mother back to their home.

When I see a woman in a veil I know that she cannot drive a car, ride a bicycle, or drink a cup of tea at the station; I know that her children cannot even see her face when they are out in the street together, and if she buys them a drink or a meal she will not be able to have one too. And she certainly cannot join the world of work on a free and equal footing. I think my feelings of discomfort are a sign of natural human empathy - empathy of the kind that led us to abolish slavery, to fight for women to have the vote, and to care about the unfairness and inequalities in our world.

What do you think? Should I suppress my feelings or use them as a reason to work for a better and fairer world for women?