Women Under Dictatorship: Beyond the Myth of Emancipation

After the establishment of the dictatorship, the state-party carefully constructed a narrative of a new life flourishing amidst ruins, concealing brutal executions, unjust sentences, and internments. To maintain its power, propaganda harshly condemned enemies and created new idols and myths. One of these myths was that of women’s emancipation and gender equality—a myth that persists even today.

The documentary “Women Under Dictatorship: Beyond the Myth of Emancipation” aims to shed light on the real conditions in which women lived and worked during that time. Through documents and archival footage, it portrays the propagandistic image of women in various roles: drivers, soldiers, welders, doctors—according to the propaganda of the time, there was nothing women couldn’t do, just like men.

Meanwhile, the voices of contemporary witnesses and scholars present a different view of that reality. Fatbardha Mulleti Saraçi, Vera Bekteshi, and other women featured in the documentary experienced the regime's violence against Albanian women in different forms. Actress Rajmonda Bulku highlights the inequality and pressure faced by women in communist Albania. Scholars Luljeta Lleshanaku, Klejdi Kellici, Elsa Ballauri, and Fatmiroshe Xhemalaj enrich the documentary through their analysis of this myth and the painful reality it conceals.

This documentary, the first of its kind in Albania, reveals the true face of a "top-down" form of “emancipation” that lacked any genuine emancipatory process or social debate. If not imprisoned or interned, women often endured a double burden—work responsibilities and family duties. Even the few women who reached high positions in politics often ended up condemned by the regime and excluded from public life.