bacha posh

“bacha posh,” which literally means “dressed up as a boy” in Dari. It is the practice of cutting a girls hair short so she looks like a boy and sending her into school or out into public like this in Afghanistan. It is a somewhat similar response of "wanting a boy child" that one sees also in China and throughout Asia. In this way a girl can be educated like a boy until she becomes a young woman and she can "magically" in the culture of Afghanistan evoke the birth of a son.  To read more about this interesting cultural phenomenon please click on:

Afghan Boys Are Prized, So Girls Live the Part