Clad in a denim shirt and faded jeans, Sanie Vatochi drives his pick-up truck to the local pub in Bajram Curri, a small Albanian town far from the urbanized centers of the south. Without hesitation, Sanie steps into the building, orders a raki—the national drink—and catches up on the news with some male friends. Not a single female is in sight, as no woman would dare enter this pub. But in this realm of the “man’s world”, Sanie stands out because, biologically, she is a woman. This is a scene from Sworn Virgins, a documentary about Albanian women who take an oath of virginity and adopt a masculine appearance in order to obtain the rights and freedom of men.

 Directed by Elvira Dones, an Albanian journalist and author, the film examines a unique cultural phenomenon through the testimonies of six sworn virgins. For four weeks, Dones visited their homes across northern Albania, following them on their daily routine and recording their conversations.

 “Why live like a man?” asks Shkurtan, the oldest of the living virgins, at the start of the film. Then, answering her own question, she explains, “I like my freedom; I guess I was ahead of my time. I never wanted to bend to a man’s will.” All interviewed sworn virgins share this sentiment; in northern Albania, where the traditional laws of the Kanun still prevail, women live much more repressed lives than their female counterparts in the urbanized south. The Kanun specifically states: “A woman is a sack made to endure”. Females typically become sworn virgins to escape arranged marriages without disgracing their families, to take over heirless households, or to pursue occupations traditionally restricted to men, like sheepherding.

 While most of the sworn virgins Dones interviewed give the impression of having made the decision themselves, in an interview with the Globalist, Dones expressed doubts: “Is it a free choice? You take the oath to go to school, to go play with boys, to travel alone—is it really a choice?”

 While the film discusses broad topics concerning the sworn virgins’ lifestyle, sensitive subjects were harder to approach. Dones explained why she felt she could not talk to them about sex. She explains, “You just cannot go there. I brought it up to them off the record, but you cannot go into details; they are very shy.”

 Sworn virgins are bound by oath: they cannot renege on their commitment or even express discontent as long as they stay in Albania. Dones, who wrote a fictional novel about a remorseful sworn virgin before making the documentary, is most interested in the movement’s potential for conflict, yet she fails to expand on the idea. In fact, Dones’s reporting never really puts sworn virgins in any context—the film really does not speak to the circumstances in which the tradition exists.

 Josh Zumbrun, a Washington Post reporter who reviewed the film, told the Globalist, “ I don’t know if the sworn virgin says anything about the Albanian society, other than that they recognize that women can do everything that men could do. But it’s a tradition that’s certainly backwards.”

 Zumbrun decided to cover the story because “[It’s] one of the only societies that’s not modern but had a socially approved form of cross-dressing.”

 But Zumbrun is only partially correct. Globalization has transformed the country in recent years. The film accurately reflects this change through shots of daily life in Albania which includes urban bustle, store shops, graffiti, and modern dress. In this regard, the film illustrates Albania’s social trends in a larger context.

 It also hints at the effect of globalization on this tradition. The film shows that many Albanians dismiss sworn virgins as “primitive people,” suggesting that they are not compatible with the modern world. In the final scene, Sanie contemplates what she would do if she went to America and met a man. In fact, Dones has stayed in regular contact with Sanie, working to get her out of Albania.

 Dones described the virgins’ world to the Globalist: “It’s beautiful, but so backward, and by beautiful I mean in the relationship people have with themselves.” Although the documentary oversimplifies the story by focusing on the sworn virgins’ desire for independence, it is nevertheless an exceptional record of a lifestyle that had been a mystery for so long.

---

Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites