They’re dying off. Story here.
How on earth do you consistently find these articles? I ALWAYS have to click on a Siam Sam link. 
My service to mankind. 
I saw that via my own news junkie cohort. Fascinating stuff. I wish I knew more about them and about the culture of Albania.
I’m guessing high-street.org.
No, actually I’d not seen that one before. Looks good.
Have a look at these:
High Albania by Edith Durham A Victorian lady travel writer; she was understandably fascinated by the women who dress as men.
Accursed Mountains by Robert Carver More up to date travel writing (late 90s).
Albania, the Bradt Guide The best / only guidebook to the country.
What a fascinating read followed up with book linky goodness.
Another reason why I love this place.
I read that on NYTimes yesterday. Fascinating, and yet, so sad. These women had to abandon their gender in order to enjoy the rights that should have been theirs, and instead of working to ensure their sisters and neices had a better life, they just enjoyed the perogatives of priveleged manhood.
Agreed. The fact that they are a dying "breed’ is a very good thing…
Ditto.
Every instance in the article of where someone becomes a “sworn virgin” related how it was necessary for them in order to support their sisters/nieces/mothers. How is this not using the power they were given to better the lives of their sisters/nieces? And it seems they’re generally accepting of the larger gender equality as it comes into the culture. One of them said she’d probably like to be a woman today, as opposed to 40 years ago when she took the oath. Had the first sworn virgins immediately led an uprising to enfranchise their sisters/nieces they would have probably just ended up dead and their sisters/nieces co-opted into some other man’s household. There were probably never enough of them to make any sort of significant challenges in the code of Kanun.
Enjoy,
Steven
Ooooh. Thank you for the links! adds to wishlist like whoa
Call me a cynic, but isn’t the “sworn virgin” in this historical, Albanian footnote down memory road a nice way of saying, “confirmed, kick-ass Lesbian”?
Just taking a wild guess, but I bet if Rosie O’Donnell had been born Albanian back then, she too would have gladly stepped up to fend off feuding families.
Plus, should they have pressured the culture for a change in the status quo, they might have limited the ability of other women to live the life of a man. Women in very gender traditional cultures can starve when there are no men to care for them. Letting a sister or aunt take the male role - but having to forsake the female one to do it is a solution. This wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was an interesting one.