Before the Taliban regime took power, Afghan women were protected by law, had important freedoms and were active participants in society:

In 1977, women comprised more than 15 percent of Afghanistan's highest legislative body;
By the early 1990s women comprised 70 percent of schoolteachers;
Women made up 50 percent of government workers; and
40 percent of doctors in Kabul were women. Then came the Taliban and their destruction of the family.

The Taliban quickly became one of the world's most brutal regimes and leading perpetrators of human rights abuses. The Taliban regime has especially targeted Afghan women and children, taking away their basic freedoms, splintering their families, putting their lives at risk, and relegating them to poverty. For example, the Taliban:

Forbid the schooling for girls over the age of eight;
Shut down the women's university;
Banned women from working (stripping a society in desperate need of trained professionals of half its assets);
Restricted access to medical care for women;
Brutally enforced a restrictive dress code; Forbade women from moving about their communities freely.
Beat women for laughing out loud.

Islam has a tradition of protecting the rights of women and children, and supporting the family. Muslims around the world have condemned the brutal degradation of women and children by the Taliban regime. The poverty, poor health, and illiteracy that the terrorists and the Taliban have imposed on women in Afghanistan do not conform with the treatment of women in most of the Islamic world, where women make important contributions in their societies.

State Department Report on Women and Girls in Afghanistan

The Administration supports a broadly-based and representative post-Taliban government that protects its citizens and preserves basic human rights for women and children.