Sad day for Italy

Oh, yet another!

Thanks to Jon Worth, blogging this week on Yourspace, for bringing my attention to another article 47-inspired petition. This time it's Greenpeace who is calling for a GMO-label.


Yesterday was also 'Gender Pay Gap Day' - check it out here.

Are members of the European Parliament never parents?

There's an interesting post on parental leave on Yourspace. Members of the European Parliament doesn't seem to have any!

Queens have a higher sucess rate

Here's a thought-provoking opinion seen in the NYT:

"A notable share of the great leaders in history have been women: Queen Hatshepsut and Cleopatra of Egypt, Empress Wu Zetian of China, Isabella of Castile, Queen Elizabeth I of England, Catherine the Great of Russia, and Maria Theresa of Austria. Granted, I’m neglecting the likes of Bloody Mary, but it’s still true that those women who climbed to power in monarchies had an astonishingly high success rate."

"I have a pet theory about what’s going on.

In monarchies, women who rose to the top dealt mostly with a narrow elite, so they could prove themselves and get on with governing. But in democracies in the television age, female leaders also have to navigate public prejudices — and these make democratic politics far more challenging for a woman than for a man."

"Women have often quipped that they have to be twice as good as men to get anywhere — but that, fortunately, is not difficult. In fact, it appears that it may be difficult after all. Modern democracies may empower deep prejudices and thus constrain female leaders in ways that ancient monarchies did not."

Read the article in full here

What's the European woman like?

Yesterday I was asked if I could come up with five words describing the 'European woman'. It's a challenging task since both 'European' and 'woman' are very broad concepts. What are characteristics that women in Europe share - if any at all? So as a pragmatic solution I decided to to look at my women friends and colleagues and consider what they're like. Then I came up with these five words:

Strong
Smart
Giving
Energetic
Passionate

Other suggestions?

Argh!

I hope to get around to comment on this another day. Argh!

Lego gets the message across

Silence. I know it's been quiet for some time here. Anyhow, I came across this poster which I wanted to show you. The message is pretty clear, huh? It's from the UN Refugee Council.This campaign is more than 10 years old, but still pretty cool. Check out the other posters here.