Is it true that this is just being done in female-only settings? That's what I'm reading in most reports.
At first impulse I was sort of amused by the sheer purposelessness of it, given that females are 'visually halal' for each other anyway... but the fact that it's an arbitrary decision that doesn't technically make a real difference is actually quite disturbing... It's like this move was made to definitively emit some sort of image of social pseudo-progression, or is being meant as a babystep toward more serious crackdowns later on... Strange and entirely typical. The Egyptian authorities seem to be taking a leaf out of Sarkozy's paranoia handbook.
It's a pity they have time to waste making arbitrary decisions about the way females clothe themselves and apparently none to spend on addressing the real issues behind the rise in crazy extremist militant kids.