'You can't eat shame with bread': gender and collective shame in Albanian society

The impact of the recent totalitarian past continues to structure contemporary social relations in Albania. In this paper, I examine the remnants of that system that contribute to the subordination of women in Albanian society through an analysis of the normative structure of collective familial shame that was utilized by the Enverist system as a means of control and coercion. Directing attention to the dynamics of recent totalitarian social forces, such as collective familial shame, I argue, allows for the development of a more relevant model for understanding contemporary gender inequalities that avoids ethnocentrism.