One big difference I haven’t seen mentioned between the wars in Afghanistan carried out by Russia and the United States: we are not being chased out as the Russians were.
We haven’t won, and we are leaving. But we are leaving some good in the country – they can now provide more of their own security, more of their girls are in school, and they want to be on the good side of us, diplomatically.
I was reminded recently that in the 70s and 80s, there were many Afghani women who were PhDs, wore heels and often daring Western clothes, and were leading in universities and in civic life. Can we imagine what must have happened to their lives and in their minds when the Taliban pushed them back to the Stone Age?
These last gasps of the patriarchy are awful for we women to live through. But don’t forget – they are the last gasps. More and more men are looking for partners, not toys and slaves / chattel. And since, by and large, we are (at this moment) nicer than they are, we won’t do to them what they have done to us. Plus we are important economically now – and more and more of us across the planet are making the laws.
The world is being re-born. We need to hang in there, smiling as often as we can.