Women Live As Men in Northern Albania
Duties or privileges undertaken by men determine the choice of women to live as men. Such tasks have made women choose to live as men or men to live as women. A typical example of such a society is Northern Albania, where women and girls have embraced men’s life.
According to Sarah Budar, in Albania Alps, women and girls are ambitious to receive power in the patriarchal society. As such, women have made a life-long vow to embrace men’s duties and socialize with them. However, Sarah Budar suggests that the condition for women to live as men was to take the oath of celibacy (Sarah Buder n.p), given by the village elders.
Nonetheless, Northern Albania tradition has an advantage to the women and girls. Despite undertaking domestic responsibilities, women can claim men’s positions, such as leadership positions (Sarah Buder n.p). Also, women and girls acquire an opportunity to reduce the half-life postulated by the tradition and feel some equity with men. Similarly, although the process looks punishing, they have reduced the pressure heaped on them by patriarchal societies.
However, tradition is making women more submissive to men. Setting a condition for women to assume men’s responsibility and power is making women submissive. Buder claims that the tradition makes women uncivilized for forcing themselves into men’s capacity when the society is rigid (Sarah Buder n.p). Indeed, even when women are given leadership positions, they do not acquire the full support from the society members who may not be aware of celibacy.
Conclusively, the tradition has many limitations compared to benefits. The society of Albania is now sensitive and civilized and has reduced to the control of the practice. As peters suggest, many of Albania’s current generation is not aware of the tradition, and some think it is a ritual.
Work Cited
Sarah Buder “Intimate Portraits of Women Who Live as Men in Remote Albania.” (2018). Retrieved from https://www.afar.com/magazine/intimate-portraits-women-who-live-as-men-in-remote-albania