Abstract

Socio-cultural barriers that working women face in society are the basic reason for their deprivation and retards their progress. In countries like Afghanistan women's deprivation is the result of traditional, social and cultural structure. Other prominent factors are insecurity and long history of gender discrimination. Socio-cultural barriers in the form of gender discrimination restrict the capacity and advantages of working women and contribute to the weak performances of working women. This study examines the experience of these barriers by working women of Bamyan province. The main objective of this study is to analyze these barriers considering three major variables including society, family and workplace.  The research questions and objectives were answered by distribution of questionnaires across the five categories of employed women in Bamyan. The results showed that half of the working women still feel disrespected by society and the work of women is not totally acceptable for communities. The study examined that 78.3 percent of the families of the working women are in support of them. Although, a considerable preference in employment opportunities of women taken place by government and administration but still women do not feel this preference in reality.