Researches show that men feel significantly less guilt than women. From forgetting to post a birthday card to starting an affair, the males are less likely to feel remorse, sorrow, empathy or anger.
It could also shed light on why untrue husbands or boyfriends often refuse to admit they are  wrong, even when all the evidence is stacked against them.
The problem, the study said, is not that women feel too much guilt – but that men feel too little. (more…)

Parlamentarische Enquete “Mehr Frauen in der Politik- mehr Frauen in die Politik”

Das weltweite Ranking
Mitte des jahres 2009 stellten Frauen durchschnittlich 18,8 Prozent aller Parlamentsmandate weltweit. Das heißt, dass heute 36.362 von insgesamt 44.672 der weltweit gewählten Volksvertreter und Volksvertreterinnen männlichen Geschlechts sind- über 80 prozent. Dabei gibt es große regionale Unterschiede wie zwischen den Nordischen Sttaten, sonstigem Europa, Afrika, Asien und Arabischen Staaten. (more…)

A Russian lesbian couple, Irina Fedotova, right, and Irina Shipitko kiss each other by a marriage registry office in central Moscow, May 12, 2009.

AP- Russian lesbian couple was denied a marriage license by an government official. They were handed a written rejection from an official in a registry office in central Moscow. The office director said Russian law recognizes a marriage “only” between a man and a woman. Despite the rejection, the couple said they would not give up. “We won’t stop in midstream,” Fedotova told journalists later, adding that she and her partner plan to get married in Canada. She said Russia recognizes marriages registered abroad.

Despite the rejection, the couple wearing suits and bow-ties and holding flowers, said they would continue to fight for recognition of gay rights in Russia. Russia decriminalized homosexuality in 1993, but opposition to gay rights remains widespread. Russian spiritual leaders have claimed that homosexuality threatens the country’s traditional values. (more…)

Anlässlich des Pflege-Skandals in einem Grazer Altenheim verlangt die KPÖ umfangreiche Änderungen in der Pflege-Politik

Graz, 29.04-Die Missstände in der Seniorenresidenz Marianne in Graz werden ein Fall für die Justiz. Wie berichtet, waren bei 18 Heimbewohnern schwere Pflegemängel festgestellt worden. Das Sozialreferat des Landes übermittel demnächst eine Sachverhaltsdarstellung an die Staatsanwaltschaft. Das Heim wird morgen offiziell geschlossen. Für 87 Bewohner muss ein neues Zuhause gefunden werden. Die KPÖ sieht in dem Fall ein Paradebeispiel für Missstände im Pflegebereich. „Die Kontrollen sind derzeit unzureichend“, sagt KP-Landtagsabgeordnete Renate Pacher. Ein Drittel der Heime werde gar nicht, ein weiteres Drittel lückenhaft geprüft. Die KP fordert mindestens ein Mal pro Quartal unangemeldete Kontrollen, vor allem an Wochenenden und nachts.

114 von 196 steirischen Pflegeeinrichtungen sind in der Hand von privaten Betreibern.

Darin liege ein Grund für die Missstände, kritisiert Pacher. „Privates Gewinnstreben hat in der Pflege nichts verloren.“ Das Land soll künftig nur noch gemeinnützigen und öffentlichen Anbietern Verträge geben und so langfristig gewinnorientierte Betreiber vom Markt drängen. Zur Finanzierung fordert die KPÖ die Zusammenlegung der Pflege- und Gesundheitsbudgets. Fehlende Beträge sollen aus Gewinn- und Vermögensbesteuerungen lukriert werden. Eine Pflegeversicherung lehnt die KPÖ ab. Quelle:oe24.at

Galina Toktalieva for die Wiener Nachrichten
A stage productions of the Vagina Monologues by Eve Enslerin in Kyrgyzstan was to serve goals of the Central Asian women�s rights movement.
It is an episodic play based on interviews with over 200 women relating how they view their bodies, sexual experiences, sexual abuse and sexual violence. Central Asia is not known as a region where women have tried to assert their rights. Of the 22 cast members, the overwhelming majority are young women born and raised in Central Asia.
“Kyrgyzstan, like many other Central Asian countries, is a very masculine and patriarchal society where women, youth and children are often repressed and invisible,” – said Selbi Djumayeva, the manager of Bishkek production, – Gender norms are rigid and mostly assign a secondary and devalued role to women”
Traditional practices such as bride-kidnapping have proven resilient even as a more austere Islam has taken hold in some regions, and many here feel that what little progress women have made in direction of obtaining equal rights. (more…)

Galina presents here her interpretation of gender differences in Austria

As great part of my life I lived among multi-language folks (including national minorities in Kyrgyzstan), my ability to catch the meaning at non-verbal level developed to degree of intuition that small children and domestic animals have from the start. Analyzing my communications, I noticed that while small part of me followed the words, other part was busy observing not what people said, but how they did it, registering slight changes in mimic and tone.
Kids see aura of people and feel their emotional vibrations – this electromagnetic nimbus around head, which for many may occur imperceptible, but glimpse of which anyone can catch if looking somebody straight in the eye or at space between eyes longer than usual, as children often do.
In Austrian emigration my tendency to judge by voice and emanations developed extremely. Sometimes my moods were euphoric or sank down only because somebody looked at me in the wrong way. (more…)

Galina, don’t be skeptical about your wishes and dreams! They are like seeds thrown in soil and waiting for time to sprout and blossom.
Thus I cheered myself up going along one of Vienna streets, and gusts of cold wind threw raindrops in my face. As alien I peeped in luminous shop windows, observing Christmas candles and  people in their purchase amok. For me – solo as I was, Christmas meant only a few additional days of aggravated solitude.
I didn’t manage well, besides arrival of accommodation welfare was delayed for two months. So the very idea of buying Christmas presents sounded improper, when two-digit figure of my recent bank report swirled in my mind as epitome of all I possessed and achieved after years of struggle in Austria.
At last I entered bakery to warm myself up, and as middle-aged sales woman glanced at me questioningly, I felt obliged to buy the cake and registered automatically miscount in 40 cents.
I walked for ages, and now it was middle of nowhere. The buzz of traffic subsided, and road widened in avenue of poplars and mansions, running forward to rural districts.
One could see around small picturesque gardens, lawns with statues and fountains. Some houses were richly decorated with clay molding and wood carvings. (more…)

Whatever they do, average Europeans talk about prices and life costs, and since I live in Austria, I never met a person, who complaining about personal financial predicaments, would not mention option of playing lotto and wining a million, as if mathematical likelihood of event equated not to its magical probability.
But how about idea that our very arrival in this world is occurrence of immeasurably greater randomness, than chance to win a million in lotto?
If conception took place 5 minutes later, fertilized cell would get other set of qualities and form other personality, not speaking already that conception could fail. But even if miracle of merge succeed, potential mother can make abortion later.
Once in crisp and frosty Moscow winter, working over my journalist projects, I was suddenly abashed by doctor, who during routine check discovered cyst in the right side of my body and suggested surgical intrude. I packed toothbrush and slippers, and found myself in the gynecologic ward of publishing center hospital – with five other women, who waited for their turn in tight schedule of medical abortion machine.
We all left our most acute fears at the porch of hospital, and once being accepted in room with beds and night tables standing in the row, we were ready to surrender. It was not expression of fear, but infinite patience  and readiness to subdue physical pain, together with guilt and shame, I observed at the faces around me. (more…)