As far as Biden administration promises go – and they don’t go far – this was one of the more egregious ones.

Followed by earnest assurances and solemn finger-shaking at the U.N. in May of 2021.

…The United States vowed Tuesday to protect progress made in Afghanistan on women’s rights over the past 20 years, as it pushes for a transitional government in Kabul that would include the Taliban.

“We must do more to support the women and girls of Afghanistan,” the US ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, told the UN Security Council during a debate on Afghanistan.

“Any agreement must preserve their gains if Afghanistan wants to ensure the international community’s continued political and financial support. We will not give an inch on this point,” the ambassador said.

How’s that going? Schools for girls have already been shut down for over a year. Six months ago, women were told that they had to completely cover their faces again.

…Now, under the new rules, “women, unless they are very young or very old, must cover their faces except for their eyes whenever they see or meet an unrelated man,” such as in most public places, according to the text of the decree.

…The decree also advises women to stay home saying “the best way to observe hijab is to not go out unless it’s necessary.”

Akif Muhajir, spokesman at the ministry of vice and virtue, said the face-covering rule applies to all women of reproductive age, from when they are teenagers. Mr. Muhajir said those women now basically have two dress options: They can either wear the traditional Afghan blue burqa, which has a lace grill over the eyes, or they can wear a niqab, a black veil that leaves open a slit for the eyes, worn over a loose black gown.

In the past two weeks the vile misogynists in control of Afghanistan have made it easier to force women to shelter in place – by shutting them out of places they are “allowed” to go in public. Last week, women lost the ability to go to public parks and what they call “fun fairs” – like our amusement parks – after first pulling a head fake that they’d allow them to attend if the park was segregated by sex.

The Taliban have banned Afghan women from entering the capital’s public parks and funfairs, just months after ordering access to be segregated by gender. The new rule, introduced this week, further squeezes women out of an ever-shrinking public space that already sees them banned from traveling without a male escort and forced to wear a hijab or burqa whenever out of the home. Schools for teenage girls have also been shut for over a year across most of the country.

They followed that edict up today with yet more hideous restrictions on women’s freedom of movement.

Gyms and public baths are now also off limits to Afghan women, the Taliban confirmed Sunday, days after banning them from parks and funfairs. Women are increasingly being squeezed out of public life since the Taliban's return last year.https://t.co/S2vStvFxKJ

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) November 13, 2022

The sign in the Tweet is in front of an amusement park, and the writing translates to

“‘Dear sisters! Hijab and veil are your dignity and are in your benefit in this world and in the hereafter’.”

That’s just chilling. One excuse after another for locking every last woman down in the entire country. And they are such loathsome manipulative lairs. Hey! You’ve got a bathroom – what’s the problem?

…”Gyms are closed for women because their trainers were male and some of them were combined gyms,” Mohammad Akif Sadeq Mohajir, spokesman for the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue, told AFP.

“Currently, every house has a bathroom in it, so it won’t be any issue for the women,” he said.

One video clip circulating on social media — which could not immediately be verified — showed a group of women, backs to the camera, lamenting the gym ban. “It’s a women-only gym — the teachers and trainers are all women,” a voice says, breaking with emotion. “You can’t just ban us from everything.

Do we not have the right to anything at all?“

No. You don’t. It’s taken less than a year for the savages to retrograde to the 7th century.

…Fatima, 36, is one of many Afghan women who say that they’ve been let down by the U.S. and Western allies after two decades fighting in Afghanistan. Now at the mercy of the Taliban, they say they have not only lost all freedoms, but are struggling to feed their families amid tightening restrictions and a nosediving economy.

“Before, all girls and women were free to go to school, to work, go out for fun, or wear whatever clothes they wanted,” said Shaista Safi, 34, a former Afghan government employee and member of Afghanistan Women’s Solidarity Team, which still protests against the Taliban government despite the threat of reprisals.

“But now we don’t have any of these freedoms. We don’t go to school. We don’t have jobs. We don’t have the freedom to go out, or to travel without a man. We don’t even have our basic rights. No work. No food. No education,” she said through an Islamabad-based Afghan translator who managed to flee last year.

Over half the country are virtual prisoners by virtue of their sex. And they don’t get to identify as male to escape it, either. How soon before the stonings start again, along with the executions in the soccer stadiums that were the hallmark of the Taliban’s treatment of women prior to the U.S. invasion? There are thoughts that this is also a tactical move by hard core Taliban, as they know in many of the Islamic countries undergoing upheaval at the moment – Iran springs to mind – women are at the forefront of the uprisings, small and large. The strategy may be to try to bottle them up and avoid that, but the problem is, you have generations now that have tasted a different life, know what an education is, and the feeling of the wind on their face. This might blow up (God willing), whatever restrictions they try. There are also unhappy younger members in the Taliban itself, who seem to be tired of their Neanderthalish image. How far are they willing to bend and how much influence do they have? Who knows, but it’s encouraging that they’re speaking up. Philosophical disagreements can end unhappily in that environment.

…Socially repressive rules have also provoked discontent from within the Taliban movement, with many of its members complaining its leadership is out of touch with the country after 20 years of war—and warning such policies risk alienating the Afghan population.

There’s nothing but economic sticks to hit these Stone Age monsters with,

…Restrictions on women are already making it harder for Afghanistan to receive political recognition and the financial assistance it needs to address its devastating economic crisis.

In March, after the Taliban reneged on their promise to reopen schools for girls over sixth grade, the World Bank suspended development projects worth $600 million, citing the group’s failure to respect the rights of women. No country has yet recognized the Taliban government as legitimate.

…and they should use every one in the global checkbooks. They aren’t legitimate, not even remotely.

Don’t back off the pressure.