One Writer's Thoughts

Interesting article on Sociological Images about the “Sworn Virgins of Albania.”

Rigid gender roles often inspire creative solutions.  Families in Afghanistan, for example, when they have all girls, often pick a daughter to pretend to be a boy until puberty.  The child can then run errands, get a job, and chaperone “his” sisters in public (all things girls aren’t allowed to do).  The transition is sudden and doesn’t involve relocation, so the entire community knows that the child is a girl.  They just pretend nothing at all strange is going on.  In fact, it’s not strange.  It happens quite routinely.

A similar phenomenon emerged in Albania in the 1400s.  Inter-group warfare had left a dearth of men in many communities.  Since rights and responsibilities were strongly sex-typed, some families needed a “man” to accomplish certain things like buy land and pass down wealth.

In response, some girls became “virgjinesha,” or sworn virgins. A sworn virgin was a socially-recognized man for the rest of “his” life (so long as the oath was kept).  Many girls would take the oath after their father died.

I would like to propose that the reason people react strongly to gender “transgression” has less to do with gender than it appears.  Rather, the example of gender shines a light on an even greater question of identity in general.  Is the self inborn or is it a cultural construct?  How much of who I am is innate and how much is sculpted by the era and the culture in which I live?  If my sense of self is in conflict with who you think I am, which one of us is right?

We– and by “we” I mean primarily people raised in Western culture, especially the United States– We like to think of the self as stable and consistent.  “If I just do enough introspection I can uncover the real, authentic me.”  But what “me” will I uncover?   Was I my “authentic” self when I was 20?  Or have I finally become my “authentic” self now?  Does that mean the self that I will be at 60 is less “authentic” than I am today? Or am I my “authentic” self when I am in a good mood?  When I am writing in flow?  Or god forbid, am I my “authentic” self when my nerves are frayed and I’ve just told off the clerk at the store for no reason?  How much of what I think of as my deep, inner self has actually been molded by the culture around me?  Is my subjective experience my “self,” or am I more who I am in relation to others?  When you start to really examine these questions, you might begin to conclude that we are all a bit identity fluid, we are all identity queer.

What if this self that I spend all my time reinforcing isn’t what I think it is? Depending on how you like to relate to the world, you will either find this notion liberating or frightening.

A follow up of sorts to my post on evolution being a pop psychological god.

They found that the gender difference in mate preferences predicted by evolutionary psychology models “is highest in gender-unequal societies, and smallest in the most gender-equal societies,” according to Zentner.

These results were confirmed in a second study based on mate preferences reported by 8,953 volunteers from 31 nations. Again, Zentner and Mitura found that there were fewer differences between men and women’s preferences in more gender-equal nations compared to less gender-equal nations.

Because increasing gender equality reduces gender differences in mate selection, these studies indicate that the strategies men and women use to choose mates may not be as hardwired as scientists originally thought.

“These findings challenge the idea proposed by some evolutionary psychologists that gender differences in mate-preferences are determined by evolved adaptations that became biologically embedded in the male and female brain,” says Zentner.

Former President Jimmy Carter has urged religious leaders to repudiate teachings that he says justify cruelty to women.

Carter, a Nobel laureate and 39th president of the United States, described in an article in the British newspaper The Observer his “painful and difficult” decision in 2000 to leave the Southern Baptist Convention after six decades. 

Carter, who teaches Sunday school at Maranatha Baptist Church in Plains, Ga., said the decision became “unavoidable” when SBC leaders adopted a new consensus faith statement “quoting a few carefully selected Bible verses and claiming that Eve was created second to Adam and was responsible for original sin, ordained that women must be ‘subservient’ to their husbands and prohibited from serving as deacons, pastors or chaplains in the military service.”

Carter said that went against his belief “that we are all equal in the eyes of God.”