“They cheat.”
“They beat their wives.”
“They sell their daughters.”
“They are rapists.”
When Martina scandalized her white middle-class peers by falling in love with Pepi, a Romani man, and starting a relationship with him, she received a lot of warnings based on the above stereotypes.
Outsiders are convinced that the Romani see women as inferior to men. Roma culture is often described as patriarchal: The man is in charge. The woman cooks, cleans, and bears children.
Is any of this true?
“The woman gives the signal.”
It was funny when a friend asked us what was the moment we realized we had feelings for each other. We gave different answers.
For Martina, this happened during a conversation. In this conversation, Pepi confessed his feelings and Martina confessed hers.
For Pepi, it happened a couple of weeks earlier when we were sitting next to each other, and Pepi put his arm around Martina’s waist for a few moments. Martina didn’t push him away, or move away, or - what he also fully expected - slap him.
If she had flinched or moved or showed any discomfort, Pepi would have never made another attempt. We would have remained friends.
For Pepi, this was Martina “giving the signal.” If a woman doesn’t “give the signal,” a Roma man will not make a move.
To use modern, post “Me Too” language, Romani men are masterful at seeking out consent. If they don’t get consent, they don’t pursue the woman. They might be driven mad by love, they might suffer the biggest heartbreak, but they will never pressure a woman who is not giving them “the signal.”
The signals of consent are non-verbal but very clear. Romani women are fluent in navigating them and never have a single shred of doubt on whether to invite someone to pursue them or stop him dead in his tracks.
The stereotype that Romani men are rapists is probably among the most outlandish ones for exactly this reason. They always accept the “no.”
And the drive to dominate over a woman, to bend her to your will, is foreign to Roma culture.
The Roma woman is a Queen
While gender roles in Roma culture are clearly defined, there is no hierarchy in them. The woman is in charge of the home and the family but this doesn’t make her inferior to the man.
The man is in charge of providing, which literally translates to caring for the woman and the family. Everything the man does is for the woman and the family. The woman “gives soul to the man,” as one of Pepi’s sisters said once. Most modern-day Romani don’t have enticing or lucrative career paths ahead of them. Money is earned with back-breaking manual labor that pays very little. It is a given, in Roma culture, that men sacrifice greatly - especially their health and longevity - to put bread on the table.
It is another given for the Roma man to immediately hand over the money he earned to his wife as soon as he walks through the door. Being in charge of the home, the woman is also in charge of how the money is spent. While the man is traditionally the one earning money, this does not put him in a more powerful position than his wife. The money he makes is for her.
What if he makes a lot of money? Historically mistrustful of banks, and knowing that liquid cash gets spent too easily, the Romani save their money by buying gold. When they decide how to spend it, the gold gets pawned. But until then, it is worn proudly and joyfully by the women as earrings, bracelets, and rings.
Do Romani men begrudge any of this? No, exactly the opposite.
A Roma man would feel most proud, most in his element, and most in tune with his masculine energy, when his family is fed and his wife wears gold. Even if he is in rags, dirty from manual labor, and exhausted in his bones. He wants his wife to look like the Queen that he already sees her as.
The litmus test: Is a pregnant woman beautiful?
You can tell a lot about how a certain culture treats women by looking at how it sees the image of the mother.
In modern mainstream societies, pregnant women are not considered beautiful. Pregnancy, and its effects on the female body, is something that the woman should “bounce back from” as fast as possible after giving birth.
Women are not meant to get big. They are meant to stay lean and thin. In mainstream cultures, it is a common occurrence for the man to lose attraction once the woman advances in her pregnancy. It is common for the woman to lose some self-esteem.
In Roma culture, the most beautiful woman is the pregnant woman.
Getting big is celebrated. It means that things are going well and the baby is growing.
When Martina got pregnant, one of Pepi’s sisters, Nana, gave her some advice over a cup of coffee because this was Martina’s first pregnancy. After telling her to drink a lot of water, and to walk a lot for an easy birth, she then spread her arms and, with a big grin, roared: “You’ll become a bear, Marti!” It was a joyful statement of fact, without a tinge of shame. A few weeks earlier, a friend of Martina from her white, middle-class circle had also shared some womanly wisdom about pregnancy. “You’ll gain weight,” she said in a somber tone as if she was giving a terminal diagnosis.
Of course, this was all advice and wisdom exchanged among women, but at its basis lies a woman’s desirability in the eyes of men. What do Roma men think about a pregnant wife?
For one, they brag about how big she’s getting. For them, this is not a negative thing. She’s even more beautiful, in their eyes.
“How’s Petya?” Pepi asked recently the husband of his pregnant niece.
“She’s great,” he answered and pulled out his phone, “Look how big she’s getting!” This was said with such barely contained pride and joy, as the young man was showing us pictures of Petya and himself at a coffee shop.
A Romani man will lift heaven and earth for his pregnant wife, not only because she’s bearing his child but also because he’s now even more madly in love. “If she wants a single strawberry,” Pepi explains, “He will go get her a strawberry even if it means he steals it.”
“I’ve heard a lot of non-Roma men say how they lose attraction to their wives once they get pregnant, and after, once they give birth,” Martina said. “Does this happen to Roma men too?”
“No,” Pepi said. “Exactly the opposite, the attraction grows bigger.”
In the Romanes language, khamni means pregnant. And khamnie, pronounced kham-nee-eh, is what a man calls his pregnant wife. It is best translated as “my pregnant one,” and is the most loving and intimate term of affection, next to romnie, which translates to “my wife.”
“Khamnie,” Pepi would say on the phone, “I’m coming home from work. Want to grab coffee?”
“What shall we have for dinner, khamnie?” He would ask.
“Khamnie, let’s watch a movie.”
As Martina’s due date approached, she realized that being called khamnie by Pepi would be one of the things she’d miss most about being pregnant.
The mother in Roma culture
In our Balkan context, it is a real eye-opener to see how the Romani treat, see, and talk about their mothers.
In all Balkan and Eastern European countries, swearing always involves the mother.
We don’t say “F off.” We say “F your mother.”
When we want to say something bad happened, we say “It F’d its mother.”
When we want to say that something bad happened to us, we say “It F’d my mother.”
The list goes on, but you get the gist.
The Romani never, ever involve anyone’s mother when they swear. And they do get angry, they don’t avoid conflict, and they do get very fiery with their language. But where most Bulgarians would say “F your mother,” a Romani would say the much more creative “May fire burn your head.” Sometimes they’ll add, “and melt you.”
There is an area where the Romani mention the mother with the same frequency as Balkan people mention her in swearing.
Songs.
There are many, many songs in Roma culture devoted to the mother, filled with gratitude, grief (if the mother has died,) and deep appreciation for all the care and sacrifice.
But even putting this aside, most songs mention the mother as if the song itself is a confession to the mother.
“I love this girl, mother, I will die for her.”
“I’m all alone, mother.”
“My back broke, from all this work, mother.”
It is very, very hard to find a Roma song where the word daje (“mother”) is not mentioned at least once.
In the everyday reality of the Romani, mothers are always present in the lives of their adult children. There is no shame in being close to your mother, going to your mother for advice, crying on your mother’s shoulder, and just wanting to hang out with your mother.
When mainstream culture shames adults for being too close to their mommies, this is a commentary on stunted emancipation, perceived or real. You need to break free from your mother in order to become an adult.
In Roma culture, this emancipation happens gradually. The mothers don’t stop it and their children remain close to them throughout their entire lives.
When you have a Goddess
What makes it impossible for the Romani to develop misogyny is that, deep down, in their value and faith system, they recognize both masculine and feminine divinity.
The fact that they worshipped a Goddess when they arrived in Christianized, Medieval Europe centuries ago, got them branded as devil-worshippers and sentenced them to unspeakable violence.
Now, on the surface, they have abandoned their old religion. But only on the surface.
In real life, from how they approach a love interest, to how they treat their wives, to how they treat their mothers, it is plain to see that the Goddess worship is very much alive.