Women's right Prepared by: Shqiponja Sula

TOPIC: THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN WOMEN’S POLITICAL RIGHTS IN
ALBANIA AND AMERICA

TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. Acknowledgements
2. Abstract
3. Introduction
3.1Rationale for the study
3.2Purpose of the study
4. CHAPTER I:
4.1Literature Review
4.2Short history about how women were treated in the past and how
they are nowadays
4.2.1 Women in Albania………………………………………………..
4.2.2 Women in America………………………………………………..
4.3Women’s rights in America which was the motif of the rebellion and
what they did to gain their rights?
.......................................................................
4.4Women’s rights in Albania which was the motif of the rebellion and
what they did to gain their rights?
...........................................................................
4.5Differences between the ways American women and Albanian ones
fought for their rights.
4.6Famous names
4.6.1 Famous politician women in America
4.6.2 Famous politician women in Albania
5. CHAPTER II:
5.1 Methodology and procedure.
6. CHAPTER III:
6.1 Findings & Results
6.2How the direct method is used in the classroom
7. Conclusion
8. Appendices
9. Bibliography

1. Abstract
It seems that through centuries women have been through different many
struggles to achieve at least the principal needs and the things that they have
wanted. It may be said that this was true for all the countries in the world and some
still have their rights not gained yet but what I am going through in this thesis is
women in America and in Albania.
At first sight when mentioning these to places it immediately makes one to say
that the differences are huge and in fact they are. The rights women have fought for
and that they still fight are almost the same all over the world, what makes the
difference between Albania and America is the time when they have gained their
rights.
It is somehow funny and ironic to think that Albania is still so far from being a
liberal country where all individuals can have their own right and their own
possibilities to fight for what they want. Most of the rights that women in Albania have
nowadays are due to the will of the people in power and of course 99% of them are
men. So it is what men want to make women believe to have rather than women
fighting for what they should fight for.
What made me choose this topic was the way how women have been treated
throughout history and how much they have done to change the situation till
nowadays. Of course there is still much to do to reach the standards of the American
women, when bearing in mind Albanian ones, however it is undeniable to say that
our ancestors have made a real change.
So as mentioned above this thesis is about women’s rights mostly focused in
Albania and in America. It mostly deals with how women’s life has changed through
history and how these changes were achieved.
I have tried to include as much information as possible about the way that
women used to live in the past and how they live nowadays making a comparison
between Albania and America.

2. Introduction
Imagine a world where women are considered second-class citizens, not
allowed to own property, maintain wages, sign a contract, vote or even hold an
opinion independent of their husbands. Also imagine a world where women are
considered as unable to do all sorts of jobs, unable to do more than just raising
children and doing housework. Imagine women without the right to give opinions
about their own properties, their children and their all family. Seems unimaginable
doesn't it? Well this is what a woman was till some decades ago. Yet that was the
history in the United States and in most of other states, including in here even
Albania. It took so much time and effort to be what we are nowadays and what we
can do nowadays. “It is only through the bravery, dedication and hard work of many
individuals and organizations that the rights we take for granted today exist.” 1
We may all know that the way women lived in the past was so different from
how they live now. Through history life for women has always been difficult and
frustrating. Most of the women were determined to stay at home dealing with the
house chores and the child rearing. In fact this is the truth about women through all
around the world and in many countries some women were treated even worse.
Someone may say that so far nothing is bad. There's nothing bad if a woman
stays at home with the children and doing the housewife. In fact this may not be
considered as something bad as long as a woman decides to be such. But the
problem goes deep. Women wanted to be different. They wanted to work, to fight at
wars with their man, to vote etc. And if some chose to stay at home, then that should
be their choice and not something that they had to do just because their male partner
wanted them to spend their lifetime at home as housewives.
It is at this point where the problem arises. If a woman wanted to have same
social interactions with their male partners why shouldn't they have them? Nowadays
women have gained many rights in and outside of their houses and they have these
rights due to their efforts and their will to have them.
1
http://www.ywca-
sf.org/Primary_Navigation/About_YWCA_Sioux_Falls/History/Historical_Timeline.htm?PageMode=Print

It is interesting and painful to know how much effort and how many lives
women have lost in order to make their lives different. It is interesting because
through the research there are revealed many interesting facts about the different
ways women fought for what they wanted and on the other hand it is painful to know
that even a single woman lost her life for fighting for something which was already
hers.
It is not only about the way that they lived at home and the issue that they
wanted just a job; it is because they wanted gender equality. They wanted to have
some rights, because in the end we are all humans and as such we should be equal,
at least before law.
I chose to write about this topic because women’s rights is a topic that
concerns to all people, even males. It is a topic which needs to be given great
importance because a woman is the one who gives birth to a child, the one who
rears them and educates them. As the famous Albanian writer Naim Frasheri states
“Gruaja duhet të jetë e mësuar më shumë se burri, sepse fëmijet së pari nga nëna
marrin arsimimin dhe mësimet” 2
it means that a woman should be more educated
that the man because the child gets his/her knowledge from the mother.
As I mentioned even above I tried to include in these thesis all the details of
the woman emancipation till nowadays both in America and in Albania. So in the first
chapter I have made a presentation of the topic and introduced the history since the
beginning of women’s struggles for their rights. I have tried to touch almost every
aspect of what they fought for but I have mostly regarded as more important the
social rights movements and the political movements.
Another topic mentioned in the first chapter is the topic which is concerned
about the reasons that brought women into these rebellions and why they decided at
a certain point to begin social and political movements.
In general women have never had a high involvement in politics and even in
the social life. It is something that made most women raise and ask for their rights
and fight for being part of the decision-making institutions and part of many different
jobs that were initially performed only by men.
2
Vellime me vepra dhe foto te vellezerve Frasheri

In the second chapter I have made the presentation of the main theme of my
thesis which is the political rights in Albania and in America. It is well known that the
main stream was the suffrage movement which lead into the beginning of the
women’s interference into politics. First they had to gain the right to vote in order to
get the other political rights, such as the right to candidate for political posts ect.
Then I continue with some data and facts that have to do with the ways women both
in America and in Albania have fought about their rights. Women and politics is the
main issue of this thesis and that is why I have made some deeper research on
numbers and figures about the percentage of women participating in the political life
during these last 100 years.
I have also included some famous female names in America and in Albania
regarding the things that they have done in changing the political situation for women
both in the social and the political aspects.
These are more or less all the things that I have included in my diploma thesis
but I wanted also to state in here that the thing that surprised me most in making the
research and in writing the thesis is the fact that there is a huge gap of information
about the famous Albanian women that were concerned with the women’s rights
movement.

2.1 Rationale for the Study
Even though there are so many studies done in order to make females more
and more eager to fight for their already gained rights and for future other ones,
there is still need to advise many other women to take care of themselves.
It is strange to think that there are many women all over the world that do not
know that they have rights. One of these countries unfortunately is Albania. A lot of
women in Albania are treated badly and they don’t have a social life. Talking of
women in Albania, their lives, their hopes, their efforts, is not a kind of task that can
be fulfilled within an article. It is needed a lot of time to go through the history and
through the way how they have lived till now.
For sure the economic situation of albania has helped in the situation that
people in albania are living nowadays and especially females.
If we make a comparison between the situation in america and the one in
albania regarding the women’s rights situatin it may be said that albania is very far
from what women used to want. They have still a need to regain some lost rights
during the last decades.
Albanians have always seen men as the body of the family and every single
word of theirs should be heard and respected.
There are some cases when women have taken the role of the man in the
family but in order to achieve this they have resigned their role as a female. Such an
example is Pashe Keqi, she is a woman who lives in Kruje and she decided to live
her life as a man since 60 years ago. Nowadays she doesn’t even accept that she is
a female. “Stripping off their sexuality by pledging to remain virgins was a way for
these women in a male-dominated, segregated society to engage in public life, it was
about surviving in a world where men rule.”3
This example shows that years ago it was impossible to have a social life or
even to walk freely in the street if you were a female. However this “change” of the
gender was not something which brought bad things to females. Actually in this
manner they gained a lot of rights within their society. Fortunately nowadays things
have changed somehow but yet there are things which need a lot of improvement.
3
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/world/europe/25virgins.html

2.2 Purpose of the study
There was an article in a newspaper talking about how women are hardly
discriminated nowadays in albania , which is something that was not done even
during the comunism period.
It shows about the drastical growth of the number of women aborting their
female fetuses. This shows that discrimination tawords females begins before they
are given birth. It is strange and fearfull to know that there is still such a way of
thinking between albanians in the 21-st century when all things should be considered
differently.
Women’s rights is a very large and wide topic to discuss and it is a very
touching topic when considering how females have been treated in the past and how
they are still treated nowadays. When mentioning albania there is a large persentage
of females which are unemployed nowadays. Seems like all people hate the
comunism period because of all the things that they could not do at that period, but
when asking people personally they almost all say that at that period everyone was
almost equal in every aspect. All could work at same jobs. Both males and females
had the opportunity to study and to work and the posibility to take part in the political
sphere.
This is quite absurde when compared with life nowadays. Most of the women
are now housewives and they are returning to the last past decades when their main
occupation was taking care of the children.
Actually this is not the same thing with what happens in america. Women
seem to search for more and more rights and they really put them in practice,
because it’s not at all a matter of writing rights and laws in a piece of paper.
The most important thing that we all should bear in mind nowadays is that we
should search more from ourselves at first and then fight for what we should have as
a right. Women have made a lot of efforts to change the situation in which they used
to live so that they could make it better. We should only continue the path that they

have already paved for us in order for us to have it simplier to construct a society
where women and men are equal.

3. Chapter I
3.1 REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
3.1.1 Short history about how women were treated in the past and
how they are nowadays
Throughout history women generally have had fewer legal rights and career
opportunities than men. “Wifehood and motherhood were regarded as the main and
the most significant professions for them.”4
This means that the main things that a
woman was expected to do was to stay at home doing the housework and looking
after their children. They were mostly occupied with works that did not acquire much
physical effort. While men dealt with the other heavy works, including here the
farming and the hunting. This is in fact a universal truth about the whole world. The
same happened in America and in Albania.
However these things began to change years later when men were more
occupied with fighting at wars and when the entire burden of maintaining the family
fell into women. At this period women began dealing with harder works including
fishing, hunting, and farming and apart from these they were to keep the house and
the children.
The start of the history of the fight for women's rights begins with a tea party
hosted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in New York. “Mrs. Stanton expressed her
feelings of discontent at the situation of women in society, Stanton poured out her
discontent with the limitations placed on her own situation under America's new
democracy”5
. But women had not gained freedom even though they'd taken equally
tremendous risks through those dangerous years.
If we talk about America it is worth mentioning that the first women's rights
convention dates the year 1848. This convention was held in Seneca fall in New
York. “In this convention 68 women and 32 men signed the declaration of
sentiments, which outlines grievances and sets the agenda for women rights
4
http://www.wic.org/misc/history.htm
5
http://www.womenforwomen.org/?gclid=COC0kZ3goqsCFeRYmAodniyPkA

movements.”6
In this declaration was included also a set of 12 resolutions for equal
treatment of women and men under the law and voting rights for women.
Another movement that the American women undertook was called the
suffrage. The movement's modern origins are attributed to 18th century France.
“Women's suffrage is the right of women to vote on the same terms as men. This
was the goal of the suffragists and the "Suffragettes". In 1893,Lydia Chapin
Taft became the first legal woman voter in colonial America. This occurred
under British rule in the Massachusetts Colony.”7
This movement in fact was not that
easy for all women. It was a movement that was spread throughout the entire world
and most of the countries won the right to vote. Nowadays all the countries
“On Election Day in 1920, millions of American women exercised their right to
vote for the first time. It took activists and reformers nearly 100 years to win that
right, and the campaign was not easy.”8
However this did not mean that with the
right of the vote they had more participation in the political institutions. For this
reason and other disagreements over strategy threatened to cripple the movement
more than once. But on August 26, 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution
was finally ratified, enfranchising all American women and declaring for the first time
that they, like men, deserve all the rights and responsibilities of citizenship.
However during the 20th century, women in most nations won the right to vote
and increased their educational and job opportunities. Of course this was not
something which was achieved within a day, not even within a month. It took many
times, many efforts and many lives to get what they wanted. But what is important is
that despite the great suffering the great efforts and despite the fact that many
people lost their lives they accomplished most of the things they wanted, and today
women have their political, social and legal status due to them. Worth mentioning is
also that their efforts made a great change in the traditional views regarding their role
in the society.
6
http://www.history.com/topics/the-fight-for-womens-suffrage
7
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffrage#Women.27s_suffrage
8

It is well known that Albanian women gained their rights later on time. However
even in Albania there is a great change in the way how women are treated and how
much they participate in the social life
As far as Albania is regarded it may be said that Albania is a patriarchal
society based on male predominance. Women are accorded subordinate roles. “The
communist Party of Labour did much to emancipate women during a revolutionary
campaign in the late 1960s and early 1970s, but many of the gains of that social
revolution have been reversed since the introduction of democracy and a free market
economy”.9
Old traditions have revived, and despite legal equality and acceptance in
the workforce, women have much less representation in public life than they did
under the former regime.
Albanians have always lived in a world of extreme hardship and deprivation.
Underdevelopment and a high incidence of infant mortality have been compounded
by warring and blood feuding that at times decimated the male population.
Reproduction, as the key to survival, therefore took on a more elementary
significance among Albanians than it did among neighbouring people. Even today,
Albanian birth rates are significantly higher than the birth rates anywhere else in
Europe.
From the beginning of life as in other third world cultures, it is believed that the
more children, especially male children, one raises, the more security one will have
in one's old age. “A childless marriage is considered a great misfortune, and a
woman living without a husband and children is inconceivable.”10
This means that
Albanian families were big and as a result women had to take care of their big
families and especially children.
Given the extremely patriarchal nature of Albanian society, greater importance
is attributed to the birth of sons than to that of daughters. Even today, pregnant
women are greeted with the expression të lindtënjëdjalë ("May a son be born"). “In
Mirditë and the mountains of the north, the birth of a son was marked by rejoicing
9
http://www.core-hamburg.de/documents/yearbook/english/09/Bosch-en.pdf
10
http://www.juragentium.unifi.it/it/surveys/women/calloni.pdf

throughout the tribe and the firing of rifles.”11
It was often the custom in the north of
Albania for a woman to be wed officially only after she had given birth to her first son.
In Berat, the main beam of a house was painted black at the birth of a girl as a token
of the family's disappointment.
Even nowadays most people in Albania want a son rather than a daughter.
There is seen a great number of females who abort their female babies somewhere
by the third month of pregnancy just because they want a boy rather than a
daughter. This is a fact that shows how women are discriminated even when they
are still unborn.
From all these facts it is well understood that Albanian women are not treated
the same to man since their birth. For instance male children generally were better
treated, by being better protected against the "evil eye." “12
This phenomenon
continues even later on in the women’s life. A woman is never considered a decisive
part of the family. At their parent’s house are the father and her brothers who make
decisions and at her husband’s house are the husband and the in lows.
During communism there was an attempt at the modernisation of Albanian
society and of women’s conditions. It initiated with the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha,
who introduced legal equality for women and the formal possibility to become active
in all sectors of work and society. This simply meant that, even though during
Communism women were induced to participate in public life, nevertheless strong
traditional impositions regulated daily life. Communism helped women in terms of
economic occupation and political representation, but not in terms of symmetrical
gender relations.
Though the Albanian women have never taken part in the social life,
nevertheless they have always fought for the freedom of their country, the only
liberating act they were allowed. During the Second World War, 6000 women, of a
population of only one million people, joined the partisan army in the antifascist
struggle. The communist Government soon gave women total equality with men - the
11
http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/cross-
cutting_programs/wid/pubs/ga_albania_111003.pdf
12
http://www.everyculture.com/A-Bo/Albania.html

right to vote, equal salaries, etc. But equality in not a mere legal act; it is
accomplished only by means of a transformation of the economic, social, cultural
and psychological dimensions.
Under the communist Government this process went on towards a social
progress, which nobody could possibly arrest. Women have gradually entered the
economic life of the country and have become the main producing force, both in
towns and in the rural areas. An eight-year education system was made compulsory.
“The level of education of women, who immediately used this opportunity, very soon
reached high standards”.13
These changes were the basis for the future struggles
against a patriarchal mentality and a tradition of slavery.
On the other side there were women who were the subjects of a double strain
and double oppression: inside and outside the family. Inside, they lived without even
the strict essential things; outside - the lack of free expression and human rights.
Their participation in the social life was at the same time a proof of their values as
well as of the struggle to gain this position.
Perhaps the most important thing, they fought for and to a large degree
accomplished was a re-evaluation of traditional views of their role in society. Both in
America and in Albania women have fought a lot to win their rights. Some of the
things they fought for were accomplished and realized and some others weren’t.
However it is well known that today most women have gained legal rights throughout
the world. Women have had to go thought some hard times to get though
discrimination. Since the early times women have been viewed as inferior and have
had fewer opportunities. For generation women only profession has been
Motherhood and Wifehood but today things are starting to change. In past in present
societies people have thought that women do not have complete political, economic,
and social equality with men.
Quite the same can be said even about women in America. “Traditionally a
middle-class girl in Western culture tended to learn from her mother's example that
cooking, cleaning, and caring for children was the behavior expected of her when
she grew up. “Tests made in the 1960s showed that the scholastic achievement of
13

girls was higher in the early grades than in high school”. The major reason given was
that the girls' own expectations declined because neither their families nor their
teachers expected them to prepare for a future other than that of marriage and
motherhood. This trend has been changing in recent decades.
Formal education for girls historically has been secondary to that for boys. In
colonial America girls learned to read and write at dame schools. They could attend
the master's schools for boys when there was room, usually during the summer
when most of the boys were working. By the end of the 19th century, however, the
number of women students had increased greatly. Higher education particularly was
broadened by the rise of women's colleges and the admission of women to regular
colleges and universities. “In 1870 an estimated one fifth of resident college and
university students were women. By 1900 the proportion had increased to more than
one third”14
.
During the 19th century, women began working outside their homes in large
numbers, notably in textile mills and garment shops. In poorly ventilated, crowded
rooms women (and children) worked for as long as 12 hours a day. Great Britain
passed a ten-hour-day law for women and children in 1847, but in the United States
it was not until the 1910s that the states began to pass legislation limiting working
hours and improving working conditions of women and children.
During the 1960s several federal laws improving the economic status of
women were passed. The Equal Pay Act of 1963 required equal wages for men and
women doing equal work. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited discrimination
against women by any company with 25 or more employees. A Presidential
Executive Order in 1967 prohibited bias against women in hiring by federal
government contractors.
In 1890, women constituted about 5 percent of the total doctors in the United
States. During the 1980s the proportion was about 17 percent. At the same time the
percentage of women doctors was about 19 percent in West Germany and 20
percent in France. In Israel, however, about 32 percent of the total number of doctors
and dentists were women.
14

Women also had not greatly improved their status in other professions. In
1930 about 2 percent of all American lawyers and judges were women in 1989,
about 22 percent. In 1930 there were almost no women engineers in the United
States. In 1989 the proportion of women engineers was only 7.5 percent.
3.1.1.1 Women’s rights in America which was the motif of
the rebellion and what they did to gain their rights?
During the early history of the United States there was little, if any respect for
the principle of women's rights. In an intensely patriarchal society a man virtually
owned his wife and children as his material possessions. “A woman was obliged to
act as she was ordered by her man and if she rejected she could even end up dead.”
15
A woman did not have rights upon her children too. So if a poor man chose to send
his children to the poorhouse, the mother was legally defenceless to object. A
woman did not have the right to work as their partners and they did not have the right
to take part in the social life not to mention the right to vote and the right to
participate in the political life and institutions. All this was really frustrating and many
women had to do something to change the situation where they lived for so long.
“The history of the women's movements in the United States is largely a
reaction to this system of exclusion and male-dominance.”16
What this means is that
what women began to fight for was the exclusion from the social and the civil
interactions. They somehow began to understand that they needed to do something
in order to be accepted in the life they wanted. If they wanted to do jobs outside their
houses they should fight for that at the same way as they should for all the other
things.
The start of the history of the fight for women's rights begins with a tea party
hosted by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in New York. Mrs. Stanton expressed her feelings
15
http://www.soros.al/en/legacy/women.htm
16
http://www.womenforwomen.org/gifts-that-give-back-
2010.php?source=GTGBPDSCH&gclid=CMKYiITylqkCFQaFDgod0GJPuQ

of discontent at the situation of women in society, Stanton poured out her discontent
with the limitations placed on her own situation under America's new democracy.
Hadn't the American Revolution been fought just 70 years earlier to win the patriots
freedom from tyranny' But women had not gained freedom even though they'd taken
equally tremendous risks through those dangerous years.
Throughout most of history women generally have had fewer legal rights and
career opportunities than men. Wifehood and motherhood were regarded as
women's most significant professions. In the 20th century, however, women in most
nations won the right to vote and increased their educational and job opportunities.
Perhaps most important, they fought for and to a large degree accomplished a
reevaluation of traditional views of their role in society.
If we talk about America it is worth mentioning that the first women's rights
convention dates the year 1848. This convention was held in Seneca fall in New
York. In this convention 68 women and 32 men signed the declaration of sentiments,
which outlines grievances and sets the agenda for women rights movements. In this
declaration was included also a set of 12 resolutions for equal treatment of women
and men under the law and voting rights for women. Women’s rights movement
started somewhere by the end of the First World War.
“On Election Day in 1920, millions of American women exercised their right to
vote for the first time. It took activists and reformers nearly 100 years to win that
right, and the campaign was not easy.”17
Disagreements over strategy threatened to
cripple the movement more than once. But on August 26, 1920, the 19th
Amendment to the Constitution was finally ratified, enfranchising all American
women and declaring for the first time that they, like men, deserve all the rights and
responsibilities of citizenship.
17

3.1.1.2 Women’s rights in Albania which was the motif of the
rebellion and what they did to gain their rights?
As far as the motives of the rebellion are concerned are the same as in every
other country. Women did not want to be treated differently from their male partners
and they wanted to take the place they deserved in the society. They wanted to work
and to be part of the same professions as their partners and to have more social
conditions. This is in fact what they want still to achieve because till now these things
are not accomplished succesfully and unfortunately albanian women seem less
interested in having social and political equality with men.
Albanian families have almost been patriarchal. The man was the one who
made decisions for everything and their word was always an order. Women mostly
were mostly concerned with child rearing and farming. “Women have been over
centuries subjected to very strong community regulations, which derive from the
combination of tribal rituals and feudal constraints under the Islamic religion”.
18
Women were relegated to the home or to remote rural areas. They did not have
any status. Therefore, we have to be aware that the history of Albanian women
differs strongly from the history of their neighbours. This historical background
explains also why former-socialist countries show such different patterns of socio-
political and economic development.
In general if we have a look at the early history of the albanian women’s rights
it is seen that it is more what they have been given rather than what they have
serched. It is the Communist party of Labour which did a great job in increasing the
emancipation of the females during a revolutionary campaign during the late 1960s
and in the early 1970s, but a lot of the things that were gained at that period of time
have been lowered since the introduction of the democracy. Nowadays “old
traditions have revived and despite the legal equality and acceptance in the
workforce, women have much less representation in public life than they did during
the former regime”.19
18
19
http://www.juragentium.unifi.it/topics/women/it/calloni.pdf

“Gruaja duhet të jetë e mësuar më shumë se burri, sepse fëmijet së pari nga
nëna marrin arsimimin dhe mësimet.(N.Frashëri).”20
this is what the famous albanian
writer writes in one of his articles about women’s emancipation. It is “a woman has to
be more educated than a man, because a child gets all its knowledge and education
from the mother.”
3.2 Women and politics
One of the reasons of the women’s right movements was even the
participation of women in the political life. The first attempts to pull themselves
through politics might have been the women's movement known as the suffrages.
This movement was firstly known to have began in france. In america it began a bit
later and in albania even later on time.
Through this movement women wanted to achiev the right to vote and the
right to candidate for political and governmental posts. Nowadays in albania 20% of
the personnel working in the various governmental areas is covered by women.
5.7% the MP's (in 1990 they were 30%) there is only one woman minister out of
twenty and no women are among the local administrative authorities. From these
data it is easily understood that the number of the women who participate in the
political spectrum in albania is very low.
In fact during the communist regime, Enver Hoxha, the president of the time
was more eager to include women in politics. Though he did not give them major
roles in politics, he did include them at some level. “During the communism period
women comprised 30% of the membership of the Party of Labor of Albania, the only
political party. They make up 30% of the deputies to the People's Assembly, the
20

highest government body in the Land. They were 41 % of the People's Councils at all
levels, 30% of the Higher Court, and some 44% of the Leaders of the organizations
of the masses.”21
Certainly in no other country in modern history have women
attained such a high degree of participation in the social and political life of the
nation.
After the communist regime fell down women were again, once more into their
previous status: at home, unemployed and with almost no female representatives in
the albanian government. The albanian women's life is really very difficult, but not for
all of them. There are also those who have a good life, who are in fashion, who work
etc. Others also have the possibility, in the new conditions created by pluralism-to
constitute into various associations and women organizations, which can have an
important role in acquiring a new consciousness of oneself and in improving the
conditions of their participating rates in politics and in other fields that they may want
to.
So as mentioned above “Like in all ex-socialist countries in the transition period,
even in Albania there has been a considerable fall down of the representative
women rates in the high government positions, at all levels”.22
If we refer to the
period before the 90s, women participation in the political life was very high: more
than 30%. “Since 1991, with the new elections, there are only 8 women out of 140
MPs, 5.7% of the total. There is one woman in the government, but no women as
prefect or mayor. In the judicial system 21% are women, 28% in the university
system (professors), 8% heads of ministerial departments, 35% in the welfare work,
etc..”23
Today, after the privatization and the shutdown of factories, these women are
unemployed. In the rural areas women now work the land, which has been
distributed to small holders, without mechanization and have the whole household
burden on them, the children, etc. Two or three years ago there seemed to be no
possible escape. Men began to go to other countries, to start commerce. Women
21
SEDA & UNDP “Human Development Report on albania; Policies and Development for the
poor and women in Albania, 2005 pg 135
22
http://archive.250x.com/5classics/english/hoxha_women/womens_emancipation.html
23

were to remain at home. But the women's fighting spirit soon began to show the
signs of the resistance to despair. The first independent women groups began to be
formed (the Independent Albanian Women Forum is one of the biggest and most
active in Albania), the first political women groups within the parties, the first efforts
to gain control over the new laws, the first steps to carry out projects to enter the
European cooperation, the first publications.
“American women have had the right to vote since 1920, but their political
roles have been minimal”. Not until 1984 did a major party choose a woman
Geraldine Ferraro of New York to run for vice-president.
Jeanette Rankin of Montana, elected in 1917, was the first woman member of
the United States House of Representatives. In 1968 Shirley Chisholm of New York
was the first black woman elected to the House of Representatives (see Chisholm).
Hattie Caraway of Arkansas first appointed in 1932 was, in 1933, the first woman
elected to the United States Senate. Senator Margaret Chase Smith served Maine
for 24 years (1949-73). Others were Maurine Neuberger of Oregon, Nancy Landon
Kassebaum of Kansas, Paula Hawkins of Florida, and Barbara Mikulski of Maryland.
3.3 Differences between the ways American women and Albanian ones
fought for their rights.
There is not much to mention about the Albanian women’s efforts to win some
rights but it is worth mentioning that they have done sufficiently to gain the minimum
of their today rights. As long as America is concerned we can mention the suffrages
that were expanded throughout the entire world with the demand of the vote. The
emancipation and the advancement of the Albanian women are regarded as a great
achievement of the Labour Party during the communism period. “Before liberation,
the suppression of women was brutal, despite the fact that in the national folklore of

Albania the woman was often treated as a dignified figure, represented in lovely
colors and with special tenderness”24
She could not have a say in family gatherings, nor could she have a voice in
the marriage of her sons and daughters. When a young bride, she did not have the
right to call her husband by his first name, but had to speak of him as "he". In some
sections women, no matter how young, were addressed as "old women" by their
husbands. When travelling, the husband would ride while his wife had to follow
behind him on foot. The "lashrope", from the bride's dowry that parents had to give
their daughters, would be carried along by them when fetching water, going to the
mountains for firewood, laboring in the fields or taking wheat to the mill. lt was a
symbol of medieval backwardness and feudal cruelty toward women.
Women were assigned separate places apart from the men, both in the
church and in the mosque. Even at home they had their separate place in the waiting
room where, from latticed windows, they were permnitted to watch their husbands
celebrating at weddings or other family celebrations. Even on mourning days men
and women did not come together. Muslim women had their heads covered with a
kerchief and in the towns they wrapped themselves in veils or black cloaks. In the
towns Christian women also veiled their faces.
In some regions whenever a woman was spoken ill of, after having her hair
cut off, she would then be mounted backward on an ass and paraded through the
streets. An old canon said, "The husband is entitled to beat his wife, to bind her in
chains when she defies his word and order."25
Young women not only had nothing to
say about their marriages but they were often sold, even when infants, for future
betrothals.
The fascists and traitors to the country left nothing undone to estrange women
from the Party, the National Liberation Front and the partisan army. Women were
persecuted, imprisoned, deported, tortured and even hanged. But nothing shook
them. They stood united in revolutionary combat around the Communist Party of
Albania. They saw in the program of the CPA, at long last, the path for their own
liberation.
24
25

Women joined the Communist Party, where they were assigned to posts of
responsibility in the partisan detachments. They were commanders and commisars,
and secretaries of Party cells. Of the partisan army of 70,000, - 6,000 were women.
Today too, they are cadres in the armed forces. Thus they played a leading role in
their emancipation. After liberation, the strength, bravery, maturity and patriotism of
the Albanian women hurst out with unexampled, ever-increasing vigor. The Party
had set up women's councils everywhere, and the Anti-Fascist Women's Union was
set up in 1944. The magazine, "Albanian Woman", became a powerful force in the
mobilization of women. Today, the Women's Union of Albania is a strong
organization, having 600,000 members.
It plays an important role in the political, economic and social life of the
country. lt held its 9th Congress in 1982 and delegations from various women's
organizations from 17 countries were present. What was the path the Communists
set out for the women? They said that there were two basic preconditions for the
emancipation of women.
The first was that she must be freed from wage slavery. As with all working
people, without this, women would still face class oppression and all the ills of
capitalism: insecurity, unemployment, inflation, imperialist wars, household bondage,
lack of public care for her children, etc. The people's revolution in Albania has long
since abolished wage slavery, so this first condition has been fully met.
The second pre-condition was that women engage in productive social Labor.
This provides the economic and social basis for equality, allowing women to be
independent and equal participants in the struggle for socialist construction. This
condition has also been fully met.
Women have, for several years now, comprised 46% of the work force. This
latter condition had to be organized. At the time of liberation women were not
prepared for industrial work, aside from some training in handicrafts. They had to
have their self-confidence built up after centuries of being considered mainly chattel.
They were 90% illiterate. Today they are active in every field of industry and
agriculture that is not injurious to their health. Half of all students are women and
girls, and they are being educated in all the various fields of learninq, including
higher education.

The main ongoing tasks for the complete emancipation of women are to
continually raise the participation of women on an equal basis with men in social
productive labour and in the whole political and social life of the country, to deliver
women from the hard work of household chores, and to strengthen and promote
relations of democracy and equality in the family. Housework will not be completely
eliminated for individuals until it is completely socialized, which requires a higher
level of industrialization than Albania has attained at this time. But an educational
campaign is being waged for the sharing of household tasks by the entire family. lt is
even written into law.
The Code of the Family, enacted in June, 1982, calls for the equal rights and
duties of family members and requires that "spouses assist each other in the
fulfillment of all family and social tasks."26
Increasing numbers of bakeries, laundries,
and dining halls are being built. Electricity is available over the entire country and
more household appliances are steadily being supplied.
Considerable funds have been laid out by the state for women to be able to
attend schools, courses, to take part in various political and cultural-artistic activities,
or to lighten the burden of child rearing and household work by setting up social
institutions and extending the service network to the remotest village. Albanian
mothers have free health care, generous maternity leave, birth clinics and nurseries
and kindergartens for children, including child care centers at most work places.
Both education and legal action are used to overcome backward attitudes
toward women, fitted to suit the time, place and concrete conditions of every
region. Hangovers from the past have been more pronounced in the more remote
mountainous areas. Persuasion and education are given priority over legal action.
It is quite different when talking about america though. Faced with increased
discrimination, unemployment, social service cutbacks, and attacks on their families,
many women have become part of the growing fightback movement aimed against
the imperialist system. Important workers’ strikes have been battlegrounds, such as
the Farah strike in Texas, where Chicana women stood up against the company, the
police and the courts demanding the right to unionize, decent wages, working
26
http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/ol-women.htm

conditions and an end to discrimination. This strike and others like it have set a
militant example for other working people all over the country.
Basing themselves on the militant traditions of great freedom fighters such as
Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, women have emerged as leaders in the fight
for democratic rights and against racial discrimination. Women like Joan Little have
symbolized the demands of women and oppressed nationalities against the system’s
brutal policies of discrimination and police repression.
3.4Which are the women’s most well known rights in both Albania and
America.
Both in America and in Albania women fought for the right to vote, for social
equality etc. in fact women all over the world had the same targets and the same
requests: not to be treated differently from their male partners, and to have equal
conditions to
them at home and at work. Even though these were under different conditions and
they took place at different times. For this reason in 1848, a group of 300 women
fighting for the right to vote attended inSeneca Falls, New York. They wrote a
document called the Declaration of Sentiments. “The Declaration of Sentiments was
written telling that “all men and women are created equal” and that both men and
women should be treated equally in the U.S.”27
Albania's new Constitution, which came into effect in 1998, guarantees
equality before the law in Article 18, which states that "all are equal before the law"
as well as "No one may be unjustly discriminated against for reasons such as
27
http://library.thinkquest.org/J0112391/civil_rights_leaders.htm

gender, race, religion, ethnicity, language, political, religious or philosophical beliefs,
economic condition, education, social status, or ancestry." 28
However, political turbulence and a transition to a market economy have
created unstable conditions in Albania in recent years. Although Albanian women
have some rights before the law, these rights are not always enforced.
3.4.1 Famous politician women in Albania
When searching the net about famous political women in albania it is
unfortunately, a sour fact that there is almost only one woman known to have had
and to still have some nice posts in the political part of albania. It is Josefina Topalli.
As far as the political situation is concerned Josefina Topalli is the first female who
was the chief of the albanian parliament.
The number of those women who had the courage to challenge the mentality
of the other people was very great even in Albania. “These ladies gave their
valuable contributions and foundation of women's road toward civilization.” 29
All
rhese women who have lived in different difficult times have showed that they were
courageous and above all brave. Some of these names who that made the change
in the way how women lived are: queen Teuta, Donika Kastrioti, Elena Lukrecia
Peshkopia, Nora e Kelmendit, Dora Distria Laskarin, Bubulina, the Qirjazi sisters, the
eminence of the iqbal kingdom, Cika, Musine Kokalarin, etc. These were women
who helped mostly in the social life but they gave force to the other women to fight
more and more even towards the political changes.
28
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women's_rights
29
http://lajme.shqiperia.com/lajme/artikull/iden/1047004985/titulli/Gruaja-shqiptare-
drejt-rrugetimit-pafund-te-emancipimit

3.4.2 Famous politician women in America
With the rise of the women’s liberation movement in the 1960’s, women
demanded a political voice. Two of those voices belonged to Shirley
Chisholm and Bella Abzug. Chisholm was elected Congresswoman from Brooklyn in
1969 under the slogan “unbought and unbossed.” She was the first African-American
woman elected to Congress. “A tireless activist for civil and women’s rights,
Chisholm co-founded the National Organization for Womenand even ran for the
presidency in 1972.”30
Bella Abzug, an outspoken rabble-rouser from the Bronx, identifiable by her
big hats, was a Civil rights lawyer and peace activist before running for Congress in
1970. “Bella Abzug has advanced human goals and political alliances worldwide.”
31
Her six years as a representative demonstrated her dedication to social justice
issues, and she co-authored additions to the Freedom of Information Act and
the Right to Privacy Act (1974).
Throughout the next three decades, women steadily made inroads to political
power. However, the most significant year for women in politics was 1992, when as
many as 60 million women voted, and their impact was felt. After the ballots were
counted, 24 new women had been elected to the House of Representatives along
with five new female senators, the largest increase of women political leaders in
American history.
Women now began to find their political footing. Christine Todd
Whitman served as New Jersey’s first and only woman governor from 1994 to 2001,
and Republican SenatorElizabeth Dole of North Carolina made a serious bid for the
2000 presidential election. Former first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton won a seat in
the Senate representing New York State. Today, 68 women including Tammy
Baldwin of Wisconsin, Nydia Velazquez of New York, Marilyn Musgraveof Colorado,
and Mary Bono of California serve in the House of Representatives. Fourteen
women are in the Senate, including Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein from
30
http://www1.cuny.edu/portal_ur/content/womens_leadership/women_politics.html
31
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/abzug.html

California, Olympia J. Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, andKay Bailey Hutchison
of Texas.
Susan Brownell Anthony
Gloria steinem
3.5 Successes and failures
Though the Albanian women have never taken part in the social life, nevertheless
they have always fought for the freedom of their country, the only liberating act they
were allowed. “During the Second World War, 6000 women, of a population of only
one million people, joined the partisan army in the antifascist struggle”.32
The
communist Government soon gave women total equality with men - the right to vote,
equal salaries, etc.
Freedom from legal sex discrimination, Alice Paul believed, required an Equal
Rights Amendment that affirmed the equal application of the Constitution to all
citizens. In 1923, in Seneca Falls for the celebration of the 75th
anniversary of the
1848 Woman’s Rights Convention, she introduced the "Lucretia Mott Amendment,"
which read: "Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States
and every place subject to its jurisdiction."
The amendment was introduced in every session of Congress until it passed in
reworded form in 1972.Although the National Woman’s Party and professional
women such as Amelia Earhart supported the amendment, reformers who had
worked for protective labor laws that treated women differently from men were afraid
that the ERA would wipe out the progress they had made.
32
http://genderindex.org/country/albania

4. CHAPTER II
4.1 Methodology and Procedure

This diploma thesis has to do with the description of the women’s rights
through history and the way they have fought to achieve the rights that they have
nowadays. I have tried to include as much information about this topic, including
some criticism and citations from different writers and websites It was difficult to find
information about this topic and books were very few and difficult to be found.
However I managed to find the needed information about my topic. In this diploma
thesis I have introduced some of the history regarding the development of women
and their integration in the social and political life.
I have also included in this topic the way how some famous women have
fought about their rights and who these famous women are making a comparison
between women in albania and those in america.
Another topic which i included in my thesis is also the reasons which brought
women to fight for some rights.
Of course not all the things that women have wanted to acomplish were
successful. Some of these things that they wanted to have in the past are still being
in demand even nowadays and some others have lost their strength through the way
to the present time but as i mentioned above women are still fighting. All these
sucesses and failures are included in another section of my theses which has to do
with the rights that women have gained and those that they did not acomplish.
Working with this Diploma Thesis took me a long time and o lot of preparation.
I had to make a lot of efforts in finding the information needed because the only
source available was the internet. It was mostly the only place where I could find the
different sites which had to do with the women rights both in albania and america. I
also had some old books which in fact had just a little information regarding the topic
i had chosen.
When regarding the comparison between america and albania it may be said
that information about women in america was so various and a large quantity,
whereas information about albanian women was so poor.
During my research i tried to devide my work in different stages so that it
could take less time and less affort and in all the phases i may say that there were so
many new things to discover about women all over the world and about their strength
and their will to achieve all what they wanted.

It was funny however to discover that in some cases it was men who made
them fight more about their cases and also many men supported them in their
issues. Well nowadays it seems that all young females take for granted what their
succesors have done and what they have lost in fighting for the rights that most of us
have right now.
Working with this topic made me create a better idea of how much we should
be grateful to our previous females and how we should at first respect ourselves in
order to have others respect us the way that we want them to, especially men.
5. Chapter III
FINDINGS

Conclusion
There have been many women who have fought for their rights and some
others are still fighting nowadays for more other rights in order to have all the
equality they need. Some of the rights they have fought for weren’t accomplished
100% and some others were given them at free cost. What’s more important is the
fact that they should preserve these rights..... Women, both black and white, were
mistreated and discriminated against during the nineteenth century. Men were

incharge of everything. Some participants during the movement were Susan B.
Anthony, Elizabeth Caddy Stanton, Carry Nation, Alice Paul, Anna Howard Shaw,
Carrie Chapman Catt, Frances Willard and Mary Church Ferrell. Men were incharge
of everything. They were incharge of the government, businesses and schools.
Women had to stay home, cook and clean, where they could be under the control of
men. Women were not allowed to vote, work or go to school. There were laws telling
women what to wear. If there was a divorce, the men always had custody of the
children, there was no fight. The Women’s Suffrage Movement was successful
because they received the right to vote and are now treated as equal to men. One
injustice was that women had no control of their money. If women were married, the
men took control of the wife’s money. If the women were not married, the father or
older brother took control of the money. Another injustice was that women could not
vote or run for president. Women could not even have jobs. A primary source was a
document written about Alice Paul. The title was The Women’s Suffrage Movement-
Alice Paul and was written during the 1920s. The document was about what Alice
Paul did for not only her rights, but all the women’s rights.In 1848, a group of 300
women fighting for the right to vote attended in Seneca Falls, New York. They wrote
a document called the Declaration of Sentiments. The Declaration of Sentiments was
written telling that “all men and women are created equal” and that both men and
women should be treated equally in the U.S.One method of resistance is protesting.
The women protested for their rights. The women protested day after day to be
treated equally amongst men. One leader was Alice Paul. Alice Paul went to prison.
While she was in prison she refused eat to gain attention for what she was fighting
for. The prison officials held her down and forced her to eat. In 1920, because of the
fighting Alice Paul and the other leaders did, American women got the right to
vote.The methods were successful because the women kept fighting and protesting.
The government started paying attention to what they were fighting for and they got
what they wanted.One achievement was that Alice Paul campaigned to add the
Equal Rights Amendment to the U.S. constitution. Every year, Alice Paul pushed for
the Equal Rights Amendment. The Government did not pass it. In 1972, Congress
finally passed the Equal Rights Movement. This movement is important to study
because other people could follow and fight for what is right.

Appendice
A group of women near Korce

Statistics in Albania and America before and after the 90’s
If we refer to the period before the 90s, women participation in the political life was
very high: more than 30%. Since 1991, with the new elections, there are only 8
women out of 140 MPs, 5.7% of the total. There is one woman in the government,
but no women as prefect or mayor. In the judicial system 21% are women, 28% in
the university system (professors), 8% heads of ministerial departments, 35% in the
welfare work, etc. Woman workers occupied 80% of the light industry and education
system.
http://www.ywca-
sf.org/Primary_Navigation/About_YWCA_Sioux_Falls/History/Historical_Timeline.htm?Page
Mode=Print

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/25/world/europe/25virgins.html
http://www.womenforwomen.org/?gclid=COC0kZ3goqsCFeRYmAodniyPkA
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suffrage#Women.27s_suffrage
http://www.juragentium.unifi.it/it/surveys/women/calloni.pdf
http://www.usaid.gov/our_work/cross-cutting_programs/wid/pubs/ga_albania_111003.pdf
http://www.soros.al/en/legacy/women.htm
http://www.womenforwomen.org/gifts-that-give-back-
2010.php?source=GTGBPDSCH&gclid=CMKYiITylqkCFQaFDgod0GJPuQ
http://www.juragentium.unifi.it/topics/women/it/calloni.pdf
http://genderindex.org/country/albania
http://www.marxists.org/history/erol/ncm-1/ol-women.htm

http://lajme.shqiperia.com/lajme/artikull/iden/1047004985/titulli/Gruaja-shqiptare-drejt-
rrugetimit-pafund-te-emancipimit
http://www1.cuny.edu/portal_ur/content/womens_leadership/women_politics.html
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/abzug.html

Women's right Prepared by: Shqiponja Sula

Recomendados

Recomendados

Mais conteúdo relacionado

Destaque

Destaque (20)

Women's right Prepared by: Shqiponja Sula