During our setting up of this site we asked Luke Powell the reknown photographer and photo journalist of the Pukhtuns for permission to use some of his pictures.
Luke turned out to be a very interesting person with lots of insight into the workings and doings of the Pukhtun culture. I am posting a portion of his email
Ancient societies like yours are always patriarchies, because patriarchal tribes never change very much. They survive and people live simply for centuries. Settled, urban cultures inevitably into matriarchies, and once embarked on that route they destroy themselves and are over-run by their enemies, but the process the whole journey of decadence and destruction is a great flowering of energy. The women who come into the public arena give it great power, but the home life of the society collapses because their energy is no longer there. The children do not have proper attention, and the next generation is weak.
Yes, the women have it hard in the old patriarchal world, especially when the men are afraid. Confident, intelligent men do not make silly and malicious rules for anyone, and they know that in the home women hold the power. I am sure you do seek to free women from oppression. However, you folks are at one extreme, and America is on another. America will make foolish, subjective decisions and go down in flames before long, but your people have the whole process to go through, a whole new time of power and prosperity ahead if you have good leaders.
You need to go after small, real gains that sensible men in your world also would approve of. You need to work within Muslim tradition, for in the short run they will win in Pakistan or what may become Pushtunistan, not the secularists. The Americans and the Europeans will be driven out before very long. The chances of this are so strong that it is important to plan for that change. I fear for women in Central Asia who become too associated with Western ideals during this time.