About the Pashtuns, Winston Churchill said:

"The Pashtun tribes are always engaged in private or public war. Every man is a warrior, a politician and a theologian. Every large house is a real feudal fortress. ... Every family cultivates its vendetta; every clan, its feud. ... Nothing is ever forgotten and very few debts are left unpaid."

Quite obviously the Pashtuns are warriors, and really good ones. Being a fighter is an intergal part of their culture. Military friends of mine that served in Afghanistan held the government soldiers in utter contempt, but respected the Taliban who could march 50 miles in flip flops living on what was in their pockets, and launch an attack on heavily armed NATO troops living in a Hesco fort supported by drones, jets, and helicopter gunships with an old Soviet rifle.

Males in Plains Indian tribes were great warriors too, vastly better man for man than the US Cavalry, and how were they defeated? They were driven on to reservations (concentration camps) by starvation, disarmed, and their children were taken from them and forced to read and adopt Western ways. The humiliation heaped on the braves by removing their warrior status was something American Indian culture has never recovered from, but how could it have been done differently?

How did the NATO forces in Afghanistan think that they could leave Pashtun culture intact and not have them fight their way back into power? As long as men view themselves as warriors, women will always fill a supporting role in society. The idea that Afghan women can "fight" the Taliban with law, reason, guilt, justice, money, writing or any of the other marks of civilization is silly. They don't give a shit about that stuff. It can't hurt them.