Outside the Ministry of Education, they chanted “Bread, work and freedom” until armed Taliban dispersed the protest by firing into the air.
One video published by AFP shows women first walking away calmly along the busy street. When one of the men fires an automatic weapon, they barely flinch while passing moped riders instinctively duck.
Images then show chaos erupting as the protesters flee.
The men chased and beat several of the protesters who sought shelter in nearby shops, reports AFP.
Promised less discrimination than last time
It has been a year since the hard-line Islamist group took back the country.
In the early 2000s, they were expelled from Kabul when Western troops together with the Northern Alliance from the nearby Panjir Valley invaded the capital.
In August 2021, the Taliban were back.
Despite promises by the new Taliban leaders that they would rule the country with a gentler hand compared to their 1996-2001 rule – when they used the Kabul sports arena for executions – women’s rights have eroded more and more.
This weekend’s women’s rights demonstration was the first in months after previous gatherings were attacked.
Deprived of education and work
Access to education has been severely limited. Tens of thousands of students are not allowed to finish the last years of their primary school because they are girls – only younger students have been allowed to return to classrooms.
At the same time, many adults were ordered to stay home from work with a catastrophic impact on the finances of many households as female family members lost their income.
Barely a year after the change of power on 15 August last year, 43-year-old Masuda Samar was informed by her employer that she had to give her position to a male family member. She herself was not welcome back to the ministry where she previously worked.
– Why should I have to hand over my job to my husband or to my brother, she said Al Jazeera at the beginning of August.