Families may choose to raise a daughter bacha posh so that she can earn an income, particularly in the absence of male relatives, to enable her mother and sisters greater freedom of movement, or due to preference for a son.
[4] If one of the daughters is a tomboy, she may be more likely to be chosen as bacha posh than her sisters; however, the choice is made by the family without the girl's input.
[1] As a bacha posh, a girl is more readily able to attend school, run errands, move freely in public, escort her sisters in places where they could not be without a male companion, play sports and find work.
[3] Azita Rafaat, a legislator elected to the National Assembly of Afghanistan to represent Badghis Province, has had no sons and has raised one of her daughters as a bacha posh.
[8] Historian Nancy Dupree told a reporter from The New York Times that she recalled a photograph dating back to the early 1900s during the reign of Habibullah Khan in which women dressed as men guarded the king's harem because officially, the harem could be guarded by neither women nor men.
One self-selected study of women in the Kabul and Nangarhar provinces found that 7% of respondents reported that a girl in their family was raised bacha posh.
Although it is tolerated, a bacha posh can be bullied and teased for not conforming to religious beliefs and social norms once discovered to be female.
[10] Developmental and clinical psychologist Diane Ehrensaft theorizes that, by behaving like boys, the bacha posh is not expressing their true gender identity, but simply conforming to parents' hopes and expectations.
Jenny Nordberg, author of The Underground Girls of Kabul, said that many do not return to live as women and that it is "very complicated psychologically" on an individual level.
As the majority of bacha posh spend their prepubescent years in a male role, many skip learning the necessary skills to become the ideal wife.