While women are increasingly reaching key positions in the world of European politics and business, they are still massively underrepresented and facing an uphill battle for recognition and equal pay.

“Still today in governments and parliaments, less than a quarter of members are women,” said Margot Wallstrom, the Swedish vice-president of the European Commission ahead of International Women’s Day on Sunday, March 8.

“There is no lack of female candidates,” she added. “The reality is men tend to choose men.”

“One half of the population is seriously underrepresented” and, this being the case, “the policy agenda will be set by men,” Wallstrom said during an EU parliamentary debate this week.

Deep-seated prejudices

Despite a rise in the number of women candidates, male politicians stand a better chance of getting elected due to deep-seated prejudices and habits, a study by the European Commission found.

According to data extrapolated from across the continent, an election with an equal number of male and female candidates would still result in a parliament with just 39 percent women representatives.

In other words, it would take 63 percent women candidates to achieve gender equilibrium in the final assembly.

“It’s wrong to blame women voters,” said Drude Dahlerup, a professor in the department of political science at Stockholm University. “The main problem is that male voters vote for male candidates.”

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Equal Rights Still Elusive for European Women | Europe | Deutsche Welle | 08.03.2009.

Miep Gies kept Anne Frank’s diary safe before its publication The last surviving member of the small group who helped hide the Dutch Jewish girl Anne Frank and her family from the Nazis has turned 100 years old. Miep Gies will celebrate her birthday on Sunday quietly with relatives and friends, she said this week. She said she was not deserving of the attention, and that others had done far more to protect the Netherlands’ Jews. She paid tribute to “unnamed heroes”, picking out her husband Jan for his courageous defiance of the Nazis. “He was a resistance man who said nothing but did a lot. During the war he refused to say anything about his work, only that he might not come back one night. People like him existed in thousands but were never heard,” Miep Gies said in an email to the Associated Press this week. Accolades Mrs Gies was an employee of Anne Frank’s father, Otto, who kept them and six others supplied during their two years in hiding in an attic in Amsterdam from 1942 to 1944. But the family were found by the authorities, and deported. Gies, bottom left, and Otto Frank, next to her, were reunited after the war Anne Frank died of typhus in the German concentration camp of Bergen-Belsen later. It was Mrs Gies who collected up Anne Frank’s papers, and locked them away, hoping that one day she would be able to give them back to the girl. In the event, she returned them to Otto Frank, and helped him compile them into a diary that was published in 1947. It went on to sell tens of millions of copies in dozens of languages. She became a kind of ambassador for the diary, travelling to talk about Anne Frank and her experiences, campaigning against Holocaust-denial and refuting allegations that the diary was a forgery. For her efforts to protect the Franks and to preserve their memory, Mrs Gies won many accolades. “This is very unfair,” she told the Associated Press. “So many others have done the same or even far more dangerous work.”

BBC NEWS | Europe | Anne Frank guardian reaches 100.

keine Angst vor SCHWARZ

Doors reopened: Michelle Obama greets audience members at Ford’s Theatre, which celebrated Abraham Lincoln’s bicentennial.

The Ford’s Theatre Society held a star-studded reopening to celebrate the bicentennial of Lincoln’s birth and award film greats George Lucas and Sidney Poitier with Lincoln Medals. The invitation-only ceremony was held at Ford’s Theatre, where Lincoln was assassinated in 1865.

CBS News anchor Katie Couric and actors Kelsey Grammer, James Earl Jones, Ben Vereen, Jeffrey Wright and Audra McDonald gave a presentation of Birth and Rebirth, a tribute to Lincoln. David Selby (Falcon Crest‘s Richard Channing) portrayed Lincoln. Jessye Norman performed the Battle Hymn of the Republic with McDonald and violinist Joshua Bell. Richard Thomas (The Waltons‘ John Boy) was the evening’s host.

“There’s a lot of history in this building,” said director Lucas, 64. Lincoln “was a great man, and he served our country in a very difficult time.” As for Obama’s first weeks, “it’s nice that he started off on the right foot. Things are actually happening.”

Poitier, 81, was still moved by the election of a black president. “I never thought I would live long enough (to see one), which is an example of how far we’ve come,” the Oscar-winning Lilies of the Field actor said.

Grammer, a Republican, expressed support for Obama. “I support all presidents,” he said. “They have a very difficult job.” And, he said, “it brings a tear to my eye every time I see him on camera.” As for Lincoln, “he gave his life so that a president like Obama could come along.”

Jones, the Great White Hope star and voice of Darth Vader, talked about missing Obama’s inauguration, but added, “I figured I’d meet up with him somewhere along the way.”

Jones was right. At the end of the tribute, Obama spoke to the audience about Lincoln. “He had an unyielding belief that at heart we are one nation and one people. … That is what we remain.”

Ford’s Theatre packs in stars, and Obamas, for reopening