PROF. DR. -ANTONETA DEDA, -

ODETA ÇATI

UNIVERSITY OF TIRANA

DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS

TIRANA, ALBANIA

DR. -PRANVERA BEKTESHI

INSTITUTE OF HIDROMETEREOLOGY

TIRANA, ALBANIA

ALBANIAN WOMEN DIFFICULTIES IN

THEIR AFFIRMATION IN PHYSICS

The career progression of the Albanian women physicists has been a very warring and

hard process taking into consideration the economical, political and social conditions

under which Albania has been undergoing for the last sixty years.

Albania is one of the Eastern European countries, which has suffered the most savage

communist dictatorship in Europe. This dictatorship isolated our country for fifty years

from all the economical and social progressive countries of the world. The isolation

affected a lot not only the economical development of our country, but also the people's

thinking and mentality.

Among the striking difficulties we may mention:

1. The parents' mentality, which hesitate to send their daughters to school to set for

Physics.

2. The men's patriarchal thinking, who do not wont their wives to do career.

3. Hardship that come about from marriages such as: being involved in science or at

work is time-consuming, whereas house work and children's education is prior to

everything.

4. The low level of the laboratories at school, at the universities and at the research

centres, which hardens the physicist's job, especially the women's physicists' job

that have family commitments.

Under these conditions a genuine scientific work in Physics has been very difficult even

for men, and not only for women. Nevertheless the Albanian people as, a European

people, has been and always is longing for education and development. So, despite the

hardships, a small number of women had the possibility to do more or less a successful

career in Physics.

The Albanian women physicists, with their scientific research have given their contribution

in some fields such as: The study on minerals, which are very important in the Albanian

economy with respect to the high content in our mountains of Copper, Aluminium,

Iron etc. This study is carried out according to radioactive methods, electronic

microscope, X-ray, etc.

In the last years, after the establishment of democracy in Albania, more work has been

done in improving and increasing the participation of women in Physics, especially in

offering the opportunities to joint contribution with other universities abroad. Some

women have collaborated with some universities, mainly European ones, in different

fields. We are mentioning some of them:

§ The white dwarf in our galaxy and the dark matter.

§ Refining the grain size of metallic alloys by Equal Channel Angular Pressing

(EOAP).

§ Photosinteticaly active radiation over Western lowland of Albania.

§ The study of the absorption and fluorescence spectra of the new glycosylated

posphyrins and their application at the photodynamic therapy of cancer cells.

§ The study of ro-vibrational spectra of HCNO molecule by mean of FTIR

spectrometer.

§ The X Diffractometric and microscopic* study of crystalline structure and phase

analysis of argil of Prrenjas. (* and other physical complementary methods).

§ Complex fields and Bason Stars, etc.

* The physics of environment

It has recently been done the reorganization of curricula in Physics at the Tirana

University. The new curriculum is oriented under three directions:

1. The Physics of condensed matter.

2. Biophysics and the Environmental Physics.

3. Theoretical Physics.

For this reason, a project has been approved by the European Community, which will

obviously improve the level of laboratory equipment, the level of scientific personnel as

well as the laboratory technicians. Therefore, it is thought to attract more girls in the

Physics branch, especially in the direction of Biophysics and the Physics of Environment,

which is much preferred and accepted by them.

A greater work is thought to be done in future with the help of N.G.O.-es which, are

recently founded in Albania. Having much more money at their disposal than Albanian

Government, they will give their contribution in accepting with priority the projects on

Physics, in order to raise teaching and research level.