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Post by Balkaneros on Jan 22, 2013 14:56:30 GMT -5
Earlier this year, we posted about Bacha Posh, the little cross-dressing girls of Afghanistan who spend their childhood dressing and living as boys. But there are places in this world where women swap genders for an entire lifetime. Albania is one such place, where sworn virgins exist in accordance with their familial code of ethics called Kanun, of Leke Dukagjini. According to the non-religious Kanun tradition, families in some parts of Albania must be both patrilineal and patrilocal. This means the family wealth is always inherited by the men, and a woman moves into her husband’s home after marriage. Marriages are arranged at a very young age, if not at birth, and once deemed eligible to marry, the woman must become a part of her husband’s family. The role of a woman is severely circumscribed, reduced to taking care of the children and maintaining a home. A woman’s life is considered to be worth only half of that of a man. For the followers of the Kanun tradition, dress is an important marker to distinguish between genders. The men wear trousers, close-fitting caps and wrist watches, while women are dressed in skirts, headscarves, aprons and sometimes even veils. That actually doesn’t sound too odd, does it? But here’s the twist – a woman can choose to become a man in a Kanun society, by simply dressing like one. So an Albanian woman who dresses like a man, is a man. A change in dress is all that’s needed for a change in gender. Born out of a social necessity, women who become men in Albania are called Virgjinesha (the sworn virgins). The process for a woman to become a Virgjinesha is actually pretty simple. All she needs to do is take a vow under the law of Kanun to become a man. And from that day on, she becomes one. She has to dress like a man, walk, talk, act and work like one. She must remain celibate all her life. She is even referred to as a ‘he’. She automatically assumes the role of the head of the family, and takes on certain important responsibilities like supervising the wealth of the family, defending the family in blood feuds and also receiving guests. The Virgjinesha becomes her family’s representative in the community. This may seem like a huge sacrifice to some, but to the women of Albania it is actually a window of opportunity – to live a life of more freedom and social mobility.There are a couple of conditions that need to be met, however, before a woman is permitted to become a Virgjinesha man. Either she must choose not to marry her pre-arranged husband or anyone else, or, her parents may view the transition as necessary if they have no other male heirs. While the first is mainly to avoid having an arranged marriage, the second move is to make sure that the wealth stays within the family, as only men are allowed an inheritance. But then there are always exceptions to the rule. There are those rare times when a woman will choose to become a man simply because she is more comfortable that way. Case-in-point is Lule, who at the age of 19, decided to become a Virgjinesha in spite of having a brother. Today she is responsible for a household of 10, including her brother’s children. Her family refers to her as ‘he’, and she runs a welding business while tending to the family’s lands. Her hair is cropped short; she wears trousers and a wristwatch. Of course, she will be treated like all other men if the family is ever a part of a blood feud, but that is a small price to pay in exchange for basic rights and freedom. (woooaw trippy ... what's going on here ) 78-year-old Pashe Keqi, a Virgjinesha who has lost almost all traces of ever having been a woman, says that times have now changed. Having made the transition over 60 years ago, she says, “Back then, it was better to be a man because before, a woman and an animal were considered the same thing. Now, Albanian women have equal rights with men and are even more powerful, and I think today it would be fun to be a woman.” Dressed in baggy trousers, sitting with her legs open wide like a man’s and speaking in a baritone voice, Keqi says she would certainly choose womanhood had she been born in Albania today. The ritual was more prevalent in the Albania of the olden times, when it was a small nation cut-off from the rest of mainstream Europe under a Stalinist dictatorship. Today, things are different, and most girls no longer want to be boys. www.odditycentral.com/news/women-living-as-men-the-sworn-virgins-of-albania.htmlVery interesting found out about it recently, how come you guys don't teach us about this kind of stuff instead preaching about Lord of the rings fairy tales? I was only joking when I used to compare Albanians to Sub-saharan Africans and Afghanis. I see now the simmiliarities are uncanny. All the best to all Albanian women and may their journeys to become men be fruitful and rich with opportunities.
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Post by hellboy87 on Jan 25, 2013 9:37:45 GMT -5
Interesting.
This just shows that social backwardness is a global thing in the past.Now,mostly in non-western countries.
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Post by littleboyfatman on Jan 25, 2013 20:28:23 GMT -5
Interesting. This just shows that social backwardness is a global thing in the past.Now,mostly in non-western countries. explain?
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Post by hellboy87 on Jan 26, 2013 9:06:02 GMT -5
Interesting. This just shows that social backwardness is a global thing in the past.Now,mostly in non-western countries. explain? The fact that Albania,a country in Europe,has this practise shows that stupid cultural practises has been practised worldwide.I say that because now,this kind of stupid things is predominantly done in non-Western countries. Those poor Albanian women of the past!
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Post by littleboyfatman on Jan 26, 2013 18:19:42 GMT -5
The fact that Albania,a country in Europe,has this practise shows that stupid cultural practises has been practised worldwide.I say that because now,this kind of stupid things is predominantly done in non-Western countries. Those poor Albanian women of the past! i stil dont get it... ?? who says its stupid thing???
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Post by hellboy87 on Jan 27, 2013 9:12:07 GMT -5
The fact that Albania,a country in Europe,has this practise shows that stupid cultural practises has been practised worldwide.I say that because now,this kind of stupid things is predominantly done in non-Western countries. Those poor Albanian women of the past! i stil dont get it... ?? who says its stupid thing??? Women have to BE men to have more or full rights. I'm sure you get it.The way how Albanians used to treat women is very much like how the Saudis have been doing all along.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2013 9:30:22 GMT -5
Women have to BE men to have more or full rights. I'm sure you get it.The way how Albanians used to treat women is very much like how the Saudis have been doing all along. The psychology and purpose is different even if surface appearances seem the same to you (edit: to you and others).
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Post by littleboyfatman on Jan 27, 2013 9:59:20 GMT -5
i stil dont get it... ?? who says its stupid thing??? Women have to BE men to have more or full rights. I'm sure you get it.The way how Albanians used to treat women is very much like how the Saudis have been doing all along. its a choice... i respect those.. even those burqas... of taliban... mading a hard choice... thats what we all respect... at least humans... to bad todays... people think we have to respect easy choices... like going out of clothes...
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dukeduka
Amicus
Numbskull misleading poster
Posts: 261
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Post by dukeduka on Jan 27, 2013 15:09:38 GMT -5
Earlier this year, we posted about Bacha Posh, the little cross-dressing girls of Afghanistan who spend their childhood dressing and living as boys. But there are places in this world where women swap genders for an entire lifetime. Albania is one such place, where sworn virgins exist in accordance with their familial code of ethics called Kanun, of Leke Dukagjini. According to the non-religious Kanun tradition, families in some parts of Albania must be both patrilineal and patrilocal. This means the family wealth is always inherited by the men, and a woman moves into her husband’s home after marriage. Marriages are arranged at a very young age, if not at birth, and once deemed eligible to marry, the woman must become a part of her husband’s family. The role of a woman is severely circumscribed, reduced to taking care of the children and maintaining a home. A woman’s life is considered to be worth only half of that of a man. For the followers of the Kanun tradition, dress is an important marker to distinguish between genders. The men wear trousers, close-fitting caps and wrist watches, while women are dressed in skirts, headscarves, aprons and sometimes even veils. That actually doesn’t sound too odd, does it? But here’s the twist – a woman can choose to become a man in a Kanun society, by simply dressing like one. So an Albanian woman who dresses like a man, is a man. A change in dress is all that’s needed for a change in gender. Born out of a social necessity, women who become men in Albania are called Virgjinesha (the sworn virgins). The process for a woman to become a Virgjinesha is actually pretty simple. All she needs to do is take a vow under the law of Kanun to become a man. And from that day on, she becomes one. She has to dress like a man, walk, talk, act and work like one. She must remain celibate all her life. She is even referred to as a ‘he’. She automatically assumes the role of the head of the family, and takes on certain important responsibilities like supervising the wealth of the family, defending the family in blood feuds and also receiving guests. The Virgjinesha becomes her family’s representative in the community. This may seem like a huge sacrifice to some, but to the women of Albania it is actually a window of opportunity – to live a life of more freedom and social mobility.There are a couple of conditions that need to be met, however, before a woman is permitted to become a Virgjinesha man. Either she must choose not to marry her pre-arranged husband or anyone else, or, her parents may view the transition as necessary if they have no other male heirs. While the first is mainly to avoid having an arranged marriage, the second move is to make sure that the wealth stays within the family, as only men are allowed an inheritance. But then there are always exceptions to the rule. There are those rare times when a woman will choose to become a man simply because she is more comfortable that way. Case-in-point is Lule, who at the age of 19, decided to become a Virgjinesha in spite of having a brother. Today she is responsible for a household of 10, including her brother’s children. Her family refers to her as ‘he’, and she runs a welding business while tending to the family’s lands. Her hair is cropped short; she wears trousers and a wristwatch. Of course, she will be treated like all other men if the family is ever a part of a blood feud, but that is a small price to pay in exchange for basic rights and freedom. (woooaw trippy ... what's going on here ) 78-year-old Pashe Keqi, a Virgjinesha who has lost almost all traces of ever having been a woman, says that times have now changed. Having made the transition over 60 years ago, she says, “Back then, it was better to be a man because before, a woman and an animal were considered the same thing. Now, Albanian women have equal rights with men and are even more powerful, and I think today it would be fun to be a woman.” Dressed in baggy trousers, sitting with her legs open wide like a man’s and speaking in a baritone voice, Keqi says she would certainly choose womanhood had she been born in Albania today. The ritual was more prevalent in the Albania of the olden times, when it was a small nation cut-off from the rest of mainstream Europe under a Stalinist dictatorship. Today, things are different, and most girls no longer want to be boys. www.odditycentral.com/news/women-living-as-men-the-sworn-virgins-of-albania.htmlVery interesting found out about it recently, how come you guys don't teach us about this kind of stuff instead preaching about Lord of the rings fairy tales? I was only joking when I used to compare Albanians to Sub-saharan Africans and Afghanis. I see now the simmiliarities are uncanny. All the best to all Albanian women and may their journeys to become men be fruitful and rich with opportunities.
Hey professional, if you re looking for transvestites Brazil would be your heaven on earth.
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Post by Balkaneros on Jan 27, 2013 15:26:00 GMT -5
Yes, your women would benefit a lot from their expertise.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2013 15:35:06 GMT -5
You are being very annoyingly trollish la3ar-uz-ALbO-professional continuum *online persona*.
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Post by Balkaneros on Jan 27, 2013 15:39:57 GMT -5
thelema-laughinggriever-Q-theyshoothorse-(fill in others) - I'm just continuing Donald Dukes point, however I don't think this is about a sex-change necessarily, but moresoe about a psychology change.
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dukeduka
Amicus
Numbskull misleading poster
Posts: 261
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Post by dukeduka on Jan 27, 2013 16:02:32 GMT -5
Yes, your women would benefit a lot from their expertise. It seems as if you already know a lot about it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 27, 2013 17:16:01 GMT -5
Yes, I am thelema-LaughingWolf-laughingriever-Q-TheyShootHorses-Anaxagoras-herrAbubu-RobertPaulson-PeakBalkan-ForumTrollNo2-the N-guy (as amateurs for some reason refers me to)and who knows what else (perhaps better left unsaid, as is so often the better part of wisdom).
I did not see a real point to that article, nor did you make any concise observation of your own beside the nebulous wish about "all the best to all Albanian women" and of course, in true Serb fashion, the clever metaphor about the primitive Albanians and underdeveloped Negroes.
If we can assume that the parts you highlighted are important, let's examine them. So an Albanian woman who dresses like a man, is a man. A change in dress is all that’s needed for a change in gender...<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;word-wrap: break-word"> <!--[if !supportLineBreakNewLine]-->
<!--[endif]--><o:p></o:p> That is a very silly statement. It's like saying that putting on a uniform is all that is needed for a man to become a policeman or a fireman or a judge of men. The transformation does not come about because of any particular item of clothing. The clothes are merely the outward manifestation of a particular role that society values and accepts. They are symbols imbued with meaning by society. Much like the wearing of the cross is an outward manifestation of an inner commitment to spiritual beliefs that society holds true and wants to teach the next generation of young minds. ... Had the article explained something like that, then it would have told us something meaningful.
Stuff like that is why I had a problem with hellboy87's statement; it merely draws on surface appearances, on how things look like on the surface without taking a deeper look at what lies beneath the mask of appearances for their real and root causes. The poor treatment of women in the Islamic world is embedded in the religion itself, which has exerted a tremendous influence upon all aspects of those societies and continues to do so with great force in our own time. The treatment of women in the Kanun is not based on religion, and at the time of its development it was made by a Christian people (which is why the absolute prohibitions against killing someone inside their home or inside a church - you could live out your life inside a church and no one could touch you). The Kanun itself and its directives for how man and women and children should interact with each other is society's attempt to establish some order in the wild milieu of the Albanian highlands as they existed at the time.
The region of Albania since at least the year 1050 AD has been a place of wilds swings and great upheavals: after the barbarian incursions, the Slavic incursions and dreams of empire, the crusaders and other adventurous European knights who wanted a piece of the action, there was very little left in terms of economy, stability, security and statehood. Entire towns and urban centers had collapsed, there was limited contact with other areas of the post-Roman world, and the administrative structure of the Church was greatly fragmented. Under such harsh conditions (and combined with the wild emotions and violent nature of the Dinarics) there was a need for harsh code of law in order to give society some structure and security. This was not the time, the place and the people to invent democracy and equal rights for all ... nor should we expect those things to have worked.
In other words, it was a code. They are important things, these codes. Why do you think the Trojan War was fought? Hint: it was not about Helen, her beauty or her infidelity, or about getting her back. The war was fought to uphold a code; the code that Paris broke when he ran away with Helen. Again, it was not the infidelity part, it was the breaking of the guest-host relationship, one of the oldest and most powerful Balkan codes, of which Zeus himself was protector. The same code of Xenia (as the ancient Greeks called it), of guest-friendship that compelled Diomedes to exchange his gold armor with his adversary Glaucos; only very silly people walk away from that passage thinking that Diomedes was a fool to have exchanged his gold armour for a bronze one whereas the true importance was the upholding of the code (their grandfathers had been shared "xenia" together). Likewise, what we are talking about here is about the power of ancient codes (and I'm not trying to associate us with the great ancient Hellenes).
Nor did the author or anyone else say something about the role of women throughout the major portion of human history. The woman as a sex-slave in biblical law, the woman as unclean in hebrew thought or so many other societies (or how such unfortunate injunctions arose probably from the women themselves who wanted to refuse male advances and avoid the burden of pregnancy and child-rearing).
Instead, all we got from the article and commentary is to blow up an ancient code, largely irrelevant today, and try to portray it as something widespread and commonplace with the gratuitous "Hey, look at the primitive Albanians, they dress their women like men, haha, they act like negroes, hehe".
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Post by Balkaneros on Jan 27, 2013 17:26:19 GMT -5
Muslims or Islam is not even mentioned in the article, yes I forgot about Robert Paulson a great chap indeed.
The article sucks it doesn't actually teach anything which is partially why I wanted insight from Albanians here.
You got a guy like hellboy living in his liberal world ready to jump at any chance where women or gay boys get mistreated, then you got fatty-MCfatty-fuck with his incoherent wisdom, then out of nowhere Donald-Dukes jumps in totally missing the plot suggesting these women to get sex-changes in Brazil when clearely that is not what it's about. Anyway... just know what I'm dealing with here lol...
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atdhetar
Amicus
tonight we dine in hell!
Posts: 3,124
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Post by atdhetar on Jan 27, 2013 19:08:55 GMT -5
uz you are a cunt of an unparalleled magnitude
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dukeduka
Amicus
Numbskull misleading poster
Posts: 261
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Post by dukeduka on Jan 27, 2013 19:09:16 GMT -5
Muslims or Islam is not even mentioned in the article, yes I forgot about Robert Paulson a great chap indeed. The article sucks it doesn't actually teach anything which is partially why I wanted insight from Albanians here. You got a guy like hellboy living in his liberal world ready to jump at any chance where women or gay boys get mistreated, then you got fatty-MCfatty-f**k with his incoherent wisdom, then out of nowhere Donald-Dukes jumps in totally missing the plot suggesting these women to get sex-changes in Brazil when clearely that is not what it's about. Anyway... just know what I'm dealing with here lol... Awwwwwwwwwwww.... not again another Serb victim awww...... I just gave you a suggestion, if you re interested in transvestites go to Brazil. They ll keep you not only happy but also in the air. 600 Thracians were the true children of God who died for the world and not the Jew Jesus
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Post by Balkaneros on Jan 27, 2013 19:19:40 GMT -5
uz you are a c**t of an unparalleled magnitude Stop taking material from HighDukes old posts.... I know you do, just stop b/c I feel more sorry for you than anything.
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Post by Balkaneros on Jan 27, 2013 19:23:25 GMT -5
Muslims or Islam is not even mentioned in the article, yes I forgot about Robert Paulson a great chap indeed. The article sucks it doesn't actually teach anything which is partially why I wanted insight from Albanians here. You got a guy like hellboy living in his liberal world ready to jump at any chance where women or gay boys get mistreated, then you got fatty-MCfatty-f**k with his incoherent wisdom, then out of nowhere Donald-Dukes jumps in totally missing the plot suggesting these women to get sex-changes in Brazil when clearely that is not what it's about. Anyway... just know what I'm dealing with here lol... Awwwwwwwwwwww.... not again another Serb victim awww...... I just gave you a suggestion, if you re interested in transvestites go to Brazil. They ll keep you not only happy but also in the air. 600 Thracians were the true children of God who died for the world and not the Jew Jesus Relatives of yours? I bet !
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dukeduka
Amicus
Numbskull misleading poster
Posts: 261
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Post by dukeduka on Jan 27, 2013 19:48:21 GMT -5
Awwwwwwwwwwww.... not again another Serb victim awww...... I just gave you a suggestion, if you re interested in transvestites go to Brazil. They ll keep you not only happy but also in the air. 600 Thracians were the true children of God who died for the world and not the Jew Jesus Relatives of yours? I bet ! Their hats look very clean for such an act like that. You are allowed to declare war on this people. They make me want to through up. FYI: These people are the Muslim Serb minority in Albania trying to show their devotion to their ¨who the hell knows what God¨. For your own pleasure, here are some Serbian Muslims other Abrahamic followers: Constantine the Great introduced an Abrahamic religion into Europe, another even Greater Constantine will make disappear everything Abrahamic.
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