Sworn Virgins

February 16, 2018 11:20 AM

Burrnesha are women who live as men in Albania for the freedom, but the custom is dying out. The strict patriarchy is slowly giving way to a new culture and these sworn virgins are the last of their kind.
posted by MovableBookLady (16 comments total)

Previously
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:24 AM on February 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

This is apparently a popular topic: Previously from 2004, and previously from 2008.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:24 AM on February 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

Of course it’s a popular topic!
posted by GenjiandProust at 11:47 AM on February 16, 2018

Well! I checked the link in Search but didn't check the topic. Sorry. The mods will probably swoop in and delete this, then.
posted by MovableBookLady at 11:51 AM on February 16, 2018

I don't think so, I think your link is a little different than in the past.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:54 AM on February 16, 2018 [2 favorites]

Well, I'd never heard about it, and this is a different article than before. Thanks for posting this! What I find perhaps most interesting is how subtly different the culture is, and the adventures they have had.
posted by limeonaire at 11:56 AM on February 16, 2018

The mentioned Kanun honour code is a fascinating and brutal thing. The whole Balkan region seems fascinating tbh. Thanks for posting.
posted by RandomInconsistencies at 1:27 PM on February 16, 2018

I hope they don’t! It’s a really fascinating topic. The previouslies are “for further reading,” not a rebuke! You are a posting machine lately! Keep up the good work!
posted by GenjiandProust at 1:58 PM on February 16, 2018 [3 favorites]

Super interesting!
posted by Secretariat at 2:20 PM on February 16, 2018

I am not Albanian and cultural context matters, but if these people live as men and use "he/him" pronouns, maybe referring to them as women is off base?
posted by ITheCosmos at 2:22 PM on February 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

Sorry to be a downer, but I am kind of disappointed by this article, to be honest. I really could have done without the tripping over pronouns. Sworn virgins have a whole variety of genders (and motivations and relationships to gender) and I sort of felt like the article was a bit heavy on the "look at this funny cultural practice, isn't it odd?" and light on actual inquiry.

To be fair, as someone who grew up reading the Guardian Weekly (seriously, one of my college admission essays about about it), it is not exactly a large publication and I suspect they edited for brevity.
posted by hoyland at 2:27 PM on February 16, 2018

It depends on the person. Even with the article you have one burrnesha who thinks of herself as a woman acting in a man's role for the freedom it gives her, and then you have one who refers to themselves as a man. It seems almost certain that there are burrnesha who are trans and were lucky enough to have a culturally acceptable way to express it, but certainly far from all of them and treating them all as men would be equally rude.
posted by tavella at 2:30 PM on February 16, 2018 [4 favorites]

@tavella, for sure, I meant for those who do refer to themselves as men, that is a good point.
posted by ITheCosmos at 2:35 PM on February 16, 2018 [1 favorite]

There's a movie called Sworn Virgin which is very good and I'd recommend if you ever get a chance to see it.
posted by vibratory manner of working at 2:46 PM on February 16, 2018

My father grew up in Yugoslavia, and his parents' servants were Albanian. My father's "nanny" was an Albanian man who took care of him, taught him to ride a horse, etc. One day that man went to my father's father and asked to be able to leave his service. He said he had to perform an honor killing, and would then have to go to prison. My grandfather gave him permission, and he left. Five years later he came back, and my grandfather rehired him.
posted by acrasis at 2:58 PM on February 16, 2018 [10 favorites]

Fascinating how the politics and practices of this tradition are both so similar and so different from our current modern notion of transgenderism. Great post, thank you for sharing.
posted by Cpt. The Mango at 4:21 PM on February 16, 2018