In the '70s, Afghan women were among the most Westernized and liberated in the Islamic world. Their pre-Taliban role as doctors, bankers, lawyers and teachers has been well documented. But almost no attention has been given to the part they played as freedom fighters against the Soviets. Or to their potential for armed resistance against future oppressors, who are likely to form the next government. Yet the evidence indicates that many Afghan women would fight to protect themselves and their families.

In October 1996, the New Internationalist magazine interviewed Nooria Jehan, a mother who joined the anti-Soviet Mujahideen in guerilla warfare. Nooria recalled, "I learned explosive techniques and began supervising and teaching the younger men...We would stick explosives and detonators under the Russians' tables and chairs." When asked what she would do if the women-hating Taliban captured her city of residence, Kabul, Nooria asked, "We will fight them as we fought the Russians."

That is what some women have done. In Newsday (November 12, 2001), journalists Matthew McAllester and Ilana Ozernoy quoted Malika, a mother whose family lived on the Taliban front line of Bagram just north of Kabul. Malika declared, "At night I go up on the roof with my Kalashnikov [a Russian assault rifle] and my hand grenades to protect my house."

As the journalists commented, the very existence of Afghan women who take up arms suggests "a female population with more vitality and self-confidence than is immediately apparent."

Armed resistance is emerging as a sub-theme of women in Islam. The Iranian artist Shirin Neshat captured this in her acclaimed photographic series "Women of Allah (1993-97)." Neshat was born into Westernized Iran. Exiled during the Islamic Revolution, she returned to a nation in which women were silenced. From Neshat's black-and-white photographs, women stare defiantly past their veils, some of them holding guns. The photographs challenge people to rethink their assumptions about the impotence of Muslim women. Women behind the veil have been underestimated.

Their feminist champions in America depict these women as unmitigated victims who will not defend themselves. Yet how can they ever be safe otherwise?

Theresa Loar, president of Vital Voices Global Partnership, which promotes women's global rights, declares, "If we are going to go in and rebuild Afghanistan and reverse the damage, we better not rely on the guys with the guns to make the decisions." The best defense against "guys with guns" is women with guns. This is especially true if the woman is alone in her home, protecting her daughter from rape or her young son from being kidnapped into the military.

Feminists who champion Afghan women by dwelling exclusively upon their victimization and helplessness are doing them a disservice. These are the same feminists who cry out against rape while promoting gun control laws that would leave women defenseless. The opposite of victimization is empowerment.

Afghan women must be able to defend themselves if their rights are to be more than transitory. The solution may be a simple one. Weapons are easily available in that region and women may require nothing more than the right to buy them. Or the right to accept arms and earmarked donations from pro-gun organizations. Compassion for Afghan women and rage toward the Taliban is running so high that donations marked for "self-defense" might well flow in the same manner as donations for food and other relief -- if permitted to do so.

The collapse of the Taliban will not remove women's need for self-defense. In an appeal to the United Nations, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) openly referred to the Northern Alliance as "looters and rapists." RAWA called factions of the NA "criminal and inhuman."

Western forces cannot and should not patrol the streets of Afghanistan to prevent violence against women. If these women are to resume the Western advantages of having careers, freedom of speech, and representation in government, they must also assume the responsibility of self-defense.

Feminists are not offering them this option. Eleanor Smeal, President of the left-wing Feminist Majority Foundation, urges instead that women play a key role in reconstituting Afghanistan's future government. This will not be enough. In 1964, Afghanistan adopted a constitution that included universal suffrage and equality for women. Women assumed roles in both the government and the judiciary, and constituted some 30% of Afghanistan's civil service. But active participation in government didn't prevent the Taliban from shrouding them in burqas. The ability to defend themselves might have.

There is a saying: Give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime. Give an Afghan woman the right to own a gun and you protect her long after the current tragedy has become old news. A gun in the hand of a mother who is protecting her child may be the most humanitarian relief of all.