Women have taken up guns in northern and central Afghanistan, marching in the streets in their hundreds and sharing pictures of themselves with assault rifles on social media, in a show of defiance as the Taliban make sweeping gains nationwide.

One of the biggest demonstrations was in central Ghor province, where hundreds of women turned out at the weekend, waving guns and chanting anti-Taliban slogans.

They are not likely to head to the frontlines in large numbers any time soon, because of both social conservatism and lack of experience. But the public demonstrations, at a time of urgent threat from the militants, are a reminder of how frightened many women are about what Taliban rule could mean for them and their families.

“There were some women who just wanted to inspire security forces, just symbolic, but many more were ready to go to the battlefields,” said Halima Parastish, the head of the women’s directorate in Ghor and one of the marchers. “That includes myself. I and some other women told the governor around a month ago that we’re ready to go and fight.”

The Taliban have been sweeping across rural Afghanistan, taking dozens of districts including in places such as northern Badakhshan province, which 20 years ago was an anti-Taliban stronghold. They now have multiple provincial capitals in effect under siege.

In areas they control, the Taliban have already brought in restrictions on women’s education, their freedom of movement and their clothing, activists and residents of those areas say. In one area, flyers were circulating demanding that women put on burqas.

Even women from extremely conservative rural areas aspire to more education, greater freedom of movement and a greater role in their families, according to a new survey of a group whose voices are rarely heard. Taliban rule will take them in the opposite direction.

“No woman wants to fight, I just want to continue my education and stay far away from the violence but conditions made me and other women stand up,” said a journalist in her early 20s from northern Jowzjan, where there is a history of women fighting.

She attended a day’s training on weapons handling in the provincial capital, which is currently besieged. She asked not to be named in case it falls to the Taliban. “I don’t want the country under the control of people who treat women the way they do. We took up the guns to show if we have to fight, we will.”

She said there were a few dozen women learning to use guns with her, and despite their inexperience they would have one advantage over men if they faced the Taliban. “They are frightened of being killed by us, they consider it shameful.”

For conservative militants, facing women in battle can be humiliating. Isis fighters in Syria were reportedly more frightened of dying at the hands of female Kurdish forces than being killed by men.

It is rare, but not unprecedented, for Afghan women to take up arms, particularly in slightly less conservative parts of the country. Last year a teenager, Qamar Gul, became famous nationwide after fighting off a group of Taliban who had killed her parents. The militants included her own husband.

In Baghlan province, a woman called Bibi Aisha Habibi became the country’s only female warlord in the wake of the Soviet invasion and the civil war that followed. She was known as Commander Kaftar, or Pigeon.

And in northern Balkh, 39-year-old Salima Mazari has recently been fighting on the frontlines in Charkint, where she is the district governor.

Women have also joined Afghanistan’s security forces over the past two decades, including training as helicopter pilots, although they have faced discrimination and harassment from colleagues and are rarely found on the frontlines.

The Taliban shrugged off Afghanistan’s historical precedents, claiming the demonstrations were propaganda and men would not allow female relatives to fight.

“Women will never pick up guns against us. They are helpless and forced by the defeated enemy,” said a spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid. “They can’t fight.”