‘I am not a feminist but…’: women’s activism in post-1991 Albania

Abstract

This article examines the shape organized women’s activism took in Albania after the fall of the communist regime. It also analyses how gender and feminist studies have positioned themselves within the higher education system, the relationship between media and feminism and the new alternative spaces of women’s activism and feminist resistance to gendered power relations. The analysis follows the longue durée of the fraught relationship of debates around feminism during and after the fall of Communism starting with the communist top-down ‘women’s emancipation model’ as well as the lack of bottom-up women’s activism, the post-1991 neo-liberal frame and the generalized post-1991 stigma about ‘emancipation’, ‘equality’ or ‘feminism’, along with the need to resist post-1991 hierarchical gender regimes.     

Gender and feminist studies in Albania – a brief state of the art

Abstract

The aim of this contribution is to identify how gender and feminist studies have positioned themselves within the higher education system in post-socialist Albania. In Albania, the post-socialist context was featured by a negative connotation of the left-wing perspective hindering the development of critical and feminist thinking in academia. There is a lack of feminist debate, and hostile prejudices against feminists stick well, particularly in the absence of a thorough debate about feminism. Gender and women’s studies are present mainly in the public university system in association with the Social Sciences Faculty. The only complete program on gender studies is situated within the Department of Social Work and Social Policy, as a Master program in Gender and Development. Gender or feminist studies are mostly taught as “optional” courses often just for the sake of having them present in the program. In this contribution, we aim at briefly presenting some of the main developments, gaps and challenges regarding gender and feminist studies in the Albanian higher education.