Monday, August 9, 2021

Women in Albania

 I don't envy any party trying to build socialism in Albania but according to Wikipedia "Under the communist government of Albania, an official ideology of gender equality was promoted. In the first democratic election after the fall of communism, the number of women deputies in parliament fell from 75 in the last parliament of communist Albania to 9. In a turbulent period after 1991 the position of women worsened.There is a religious revival among Albanians which in the case of Muslims sometimes means that women are pushed back to the traditional role of mother and housekeeper. As of 2013 women represented 22.9% of the parliament." This NYT article presents a dreary picture of the status of women but there is no doubt that their position has degenerated under the conditions of current Euro-American capitalism (tens of thousands of young Albanian women are yearly sold off as sex slaves). Socialist Albania, whatever problems it had, instituted the greatest revolutionary improvement in the lives of women in the entire history of modern Albania and it has been downhill ever since the overthrow of the socialist government. Whether Western style bourgeois "democracy" will bring about social emancipation and equality for Albanian women remains to be seen.

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