Albanian Women living their lives as Men

January 24, 2013 7:25 AM

Photographic Portraits of Albanian Women who have lived their lives as men. Single page gallery from Petapixel.com "For her project Sworn Virgins of Albania, photographer Jill Peters visited to the mountain villages of northern Albania to capture portraits of “burneshas,” or females who have lived their lives as men for reasons related to their culture and society."

Previously on Metafilter:The Woman Who Wore the Pants: New York Times account of the twilight of an ancient Albanian tradition that permitted young women to forever pledge to live as men -- swearing completely off sex and marriage in exchange for greater social, political, and economic freedom.

Also Previously on Metafilter:Sworn Virgins :"A sworn virgin is called such because she swears—takes a vow under the law of the Kanun—to become a man. From the day she takes this vow (which is sometimes at a very early age), she becomes a man: she dresses like one, acts like one, walks like one, works like one, talks like one, and her family and community treat her as one. She is referred to as he. He will never marry and will remain celibate all of his life."

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