Roma women in gàdjo culture: Lies and filth / Romnia adre e gàdjikani kultura: hoxapen tha melalipen

Imaginary Roma women, nothing but stereotypes and myths!

(May 2017)

I am infuriated by the typical portrayals of Romnia (Roma women) in popular culture... for centuries we have been portrayed as over-sexualized seductresses and lubnia (umm, whores/sluts), evil witches, emotionally unstable schemers and criminals; often all of these together. The character of Esmerelda in The Hunchback of Notre-Dame is a pretty good early example of the genre, or the character of Carmen in Bizet's opera, and it hasn't got any better over the centuries.

Many gàdje, especially in countries like Britain that until recently did not have a very large population of Roma, know nothing of the reality of our culture and our lives and so their beliefs about us are informed by these idiotic portrayals, as well as by horrendous rubbish on television such as “My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding” (anyone who wants to learn some truly obscene cusswords in Romani has only to sit me down in front of one of these programmes!), in which the participants are not at all real Roma (they're all white English-speakers, for a start). Real Roma, and our lives – and above all, real Romnia – are nothing at all like those stereotypes. But the stereotypes are powerful and pervasive, and reinforce the “othering” and the racism that so often makes our lives difficult.

The pictures above were collected from the Web and show typical gàdjo stereotypes of supposed “Gypsy women” (i.e. Romnia). Not one of them is the least bit realistic; all of the outfits are extremely sexualized and revealing – no real Romni would ever wear anything remotely like that, it would be quite shocking and disgusting, not to mention màkhadi [ritually unclean]. Compare those outfits with the genuine traditional Romani style of dress that you'll see in my own photographs (below) and you'll see a huge difference: ankle-length skirts; shoulders, chest and stomach all fully covered; beautiful, but entirely modest.

And this is the crux of the difference between the reality of the Romni and the gàdjo's fantasy of the Romni: our cultural values behove us to be chaste and modest. Emotional we may be, as anyone who has ever crossed me can undoubtedly attest, but sexually wanton we most certainly are not. Pre-marital and extra-marital sex is highly taboo in our culture, and exposing our bodies in the way that gàdjia often do is definitely not considered acceptable. Neither are we conspirators, criminals or evil witches... but perhaps it suits the fantasies of the gàdjo male to depict us as such: there seems to be a certain mindset that is attracted to dangerous/forbidden females, and what could be more dangerous and forbidden than a woman from a different racial group, who is supposedly an emotionally unstable criminal, witch, conspirator, seductress or whore? And yet, somehow, the fact of how offensive all this nonsense is to real Romnia gets forgotten or ignored. Maybe because Mr Average Gàdjo doesn't actually know any real Romnia and maybe doesn't even quite realise that we really exist and have feelings. Or maybe he just doesn't care. Either way, it makes me both sad and angry.

Incidentally, another point about all of the pictures which irritates and offends me is that all but one of the "fantasy Romnia" are shown as white-skinned, and only a couple of them even have black hair or dark eyes. This is a classic example of "racial whitewashing" – real Roma come in a range of attractive shades, but we're not white! Our ancestors came from Northern India, after all, and our appearance reflects that.

And on the subject of witchcraft... again, here the popular portrayal is that all Romnia are witches with hideous and dangerous occult powers. Now of course, magic is a significant part of our traditions, but it is nonsense to suggest that all Romnia have either the ability or the training as Chovahània (witches, magic workers) – especially in these days when Christianization has led to the loss of the old magical traditions in many clans. Many Roma clans are no longer nomadic and have lived a settled lifestyle for centuries, and so too some clans have not had any practitioners of magic for a very long time now – very sadly. And in some others, it has been reduced to the status of a sideshow, suitable for making a bit of money from gullible gàdje but not suitable for serious use. Again, that saddens me, since I am a genuine Chovahàni/Dravengri/Sastimeskri (witch, herbalist, healer) from a clan that fully retains both the original pre-Christian religious beliefs and the old magical and healing knowledge. Anyhow... the popular depiction of certain Romnia as witches, and evil ones at that, rather than highly respected tribal healers and keepers of knowledge and wisdom (which is how Chovahània are in fact regarded in clans that still hold the tradition) is another highly irritating part of the popular stereotype. And for those of us who do have the ability and training to use the old magical skills, we are not doers of evil or dancers with the Devil (in our traditional faith, the Devil in the Christian sense doesn't even exist; we do have a nice selection of demonic forces, but no-one in their right mind would consort with them unless they wanted their brain sucked out down their nose). Instead, we are healers, defenders, and righters of wrongs. Naturally, this didn't stop the extremist Christians who made it their mission to convert the "heathen Gypsies" from deliberately misrepresenting the old ways and murdering and torturing thousands of innocent Romnia in order to discredit the old ways and to intimidate the majority of Roma into converting. (And just to be clear, I have nothing at all against Roma who sincerely profess a Christian faith so long as they respect my right to keep the Old Faith and the magical/healing practices that go with it, as I in turn respect their faith; it just saddens me that conversion was forced upon many of us in such a way).

And so... it is well past time that we fought back to educate the gàdje about the reality of Roma lives, and especially about the lives of Romnia. Of course, to do this we will have to somewhat alter our traditional stance of avripen, of holding ourselves entirely separate from gàdje – but in many instances this change is being forced upon us anyway by modern society, so we may as well use it to our benefit. Let us try to teach those gàdje who will listen, even if only in a small way, about the reality and dispel the stereotypes, and slowly we will be able to break down the nonsense and even, in time I hope, some of the racism we face.

Genuine traditional Romani style of dress: beautiful but totally modest