I read this and I think, “Thank W!”–let the history books note it even if “the feminists” won’t:

Afghan Women Building Their Own Councils
By Michael Luongo – WeNews correspondent
HERAT, Afghanistan (WOMENSENEWS)–Four years after the fall of the Taliban here, Afghanistan is waiting for the final results on Oct. 22 of elections for Parliament and its provincial capitals that were held for the first time in more than three decades.
Turnout has been estimated at 55 percent in the legislative elections and 70 percent in the presidential election. Under the preliminary results already tallied, women appear to have made a strong showing in the races. One-quarter of the seats in Parliament and the provincial councils were set aside for women.
In the meantime–after the ruins of wars that began in 1973–the country continues to rebuild, road by road and institution by institution.
One of those institutions, the Voice of Women Organization, formed in Herat in 1998 when the Taliban still ruled. The Voice of Women was illegal and had to operate in secrecy, teaching girls and young women how to read and write behind closed doors.
“We met in my house and in those of other women,” Suraya Pakzad, the group’s founder, recalled in recent interviews with Women’s eNews held in Herat and the surrounding villages. “The women would gather together and we would use donated books to teach them. Each reading area had an oven though, and if we were discovered, we had to burn all the books.”
Once the Taliban fell, Pakzad, 34, continued her work openly.
“We were the first woman-run NGO registered under the new government,” she said.