Western politicians are worried about women's rights in Afghanistan, and rightly so, but we should remember that Western intervention in the late 20th c. destroyed a gender-progressive government to replace it with Islamic fundamentalists. Perhaps some reflection is in order.
In 1978, Afghanistan's socialist government, the DRA, abolished sharia law, declared full equality for women, and prioritized women's education. The project was led by Masuma Esmati-Wardak, the first female member of the Afghan Parliament, who served as the Minister of Education.
Women held several leading positions in the DRA. Most notably, the feminist revolutionary Anahita Ratebzad served as deputy head of state from 1980-1986. Afghanistan had a female VP long before the US did. 
The United States and Britain sought to destroy the DRA, under the banner of the Cold War, by arming and funding the Mujahideen, a jihadist movement with violently anti-feminist views. They succeeded, and the DRA collapsed in 1992. Ratebzad was forced into exile.
The Mujahideen formed a government in that year, with the support of the United States, and began to reverse women's rights. The Taliban, a rival Islamist faction with similar ideology, rose during the chaos of the DRA collapse, took power in 1996, and oppressed women brutally.
This is not to romanticize the DRA; far from it. The point is that when it comes to women's rights, the West's role in Afghanistan is much more complicated, and troubling, than contemporary discourse would make it seem.
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