“Men approach their work with the same mindset they use in competitive sports. Competitive sports, war and the workplace are governed by a set of unwritten rules familiar to most men but unknown to most women. Unfamiliarity with these rules is the most significant and elusive factor trapping women below the glass ceiling.”

Adrienne Mendell, Rules of the “WORK” game, initially published on Womens Media, discovered on the excellent Blog Jump

“Last year, I covered the Obama campaign. It was marked by its confidence and boldness – by the overpowering sense of the tide of history changing. The sense of purpose in Europe, at first sight, seems less clear.”

Gavin Hewitt, The capital of Europe?

Berlaymont - the European Commission Headquarters

“You can tell a lot about a political system from the buildings it erects to house its decision-makers.”

Richard Laming, Building European Democracy, seen on euobserver.com

Reading the first sentence of this column, the image of the European Commission headquarters immediately popped into my mind, see on the right… What does it make you think of?

A beautiful testimony on how it feels to look different, to be a black girl in a white world. Read here. The post was written by Lady and published on Writing for y(EU), the blog of the European Parliament’s web communication team. The EU affairs world -just like any other power centre- is still missing a little variety, which is precisely why equality policies and positive discrimination are necessary. To read more on this topic, consult the report I wrote on the PES activists forum workshop “Championning equality for all”.

James Larkin's statue in Dublin

“The great only appear great because we are on our knees. Let us arise!”

James Larkin, trade unionist and co-founder of the Irish Labour Party

“There have been times that I thought I couldn’t last for long,