Strength and Resistance Social Focus
Voices of Resilience Celebrating Strength, Stories, and Struggles: An Interview on the Resilience of Romani Women
In the initial segment of our interview, I engaged in an insightful conversation with Urania Rapti, a psychologist, trainer, and mentor. Our discussion delved into the present conditions faced by Roma women, with a particular focus on the Dendropotamos neighborhood in Thessaloníki. Leveraging her extensive two-decade expertise in this domain, our dialogue provided a wealth of valuable insights on a topic that continues to spark debate. First, would you define this society patriarchal or matriarchal?
It is patriarchal culture, when a couple gets mar-
ried, the young bride leave their family and go to live with the family of the husband, even in words she will became the daughter of his family, in this way if you are an old woman and your first son brings you a bride, then you have power, it’s like being the mother of the king, you are not the king but you are the person that influences so in a way not on the wedding but when your son would be an adult, even if it’s father is alive, he will be perceived as the head of the family so now you have power as a woman. That means that traditionally speaking girls are getting married very young, now something is changing, we don’t have marriages of 10 years old but the farther you are from the urban context the lower you get married. In Dendropotamos nowadays girls are getting married at the ages of 17/18/20s, extremely young, but in the ghetto you can see brides
by Francesca Muratori
at the age of 14-15, also it has to do with the low virginity beings that is still active, as it was in the Greek society but not now, so the full honor of the family has to do with the daughter being married as virgin and this is why in the traditional wedding they will take the bed linen with the blood, put it in the basket with flowers and they will dance with it, until they give it to the mother of the bride, it’s an honor, it’s a good family that raised a good girl. So, these things make the girls married younger than what they would have chosen themselves also because modern girls, used to live in another way, as a non-roman, have so much more freedom. Luckily as years grow and more women emancipated and become stronger and these things changed but it still depends on where you are, and in which community you are in. In some communities you can find women married at 25 or also women that don’t want to get married, like for example Eleni.
And how is it perceived nowadays?
Eleni in general is a young woman that broke many barriers but also, she comes from a very open-minded family, so she has the support of her parents, which has been very helpful. And when you have women like her, then younger girls understand that they can have choices, or even negotiate if someone brings and arrange marriage to them, they can discuss with their parents and say, “I don’t want to do that in this way”. Also, for this reason many girls decided
43
