What are the main equality aspects in your country?

Bulgaria:

Women in Bulgaria are quite equal - they have studied technical matters and you can find them in high positions as e.g. engineer. At the same time they have conserved their feminine side - it will be difficult to find mannishly behaving socold truck ladies. There is no prejudice that only energic male behaviour leads to a good career.
On the other side, in Bulgaria it is like taboo that a housewife employs a cleaner - it is supposed a good housekeeper has to do that by herself and that is a sign that in familiar level women still feel quite insecure about their role...

Concerning minorities, the prejudice is that only the money determines who you are - if a gipsy is rich, his ethnia is no theme.

 

Romania:

Corruption and ethnical prejudices against minorities like the Sinti and Roma must be fighted. But Romanians are generally very superficial and judge the people after the dress, the satus and especially the look. They cannot absolutely deal with refugees although we are a country where they don´t want to enter. Normally the Romanians are the refugees in other countries...

 

Latvia:

The inflated statal system has to be restructured. We have the same quantity of government employees as in Germany but only 2,3 million inhabitants!

Our prisoners cost about 10 Euro per day. But for a kid a family receives 8 Euro per day. Should we imprison our children, to give them a better life?

 

Iceland:

Immigration was no theme at all, now we notice it a little bit but not so strong as in Germany. In Iceland people are quite rassists as they aren´t used to darker tanned skins.

The gender equality is balanced. It is no theme if a lady is president - it seems normal! That has also historic reasons as there is no difference of names in the families. Daughters are called with the surname of their mother and the suffix -dottir, sons have the name of the father but with the last syllable -son. That´s really equal.

Though, if a woman is single educating mother, her son might be called something like Ingridsson, so everybody knows that he has no father as in his surname there is a female root...

The racism is still strong, they are not very used to foreigners and as Asian looking citizen I have felt insulted.

 

Slovenia:

We haven´t had any immigration comparing to now, except the one coming from the near states like Bosnia. There are more Muslims than Protestants.
There is a big unequality between private enterprises and statal institutions - they are inefficient while in the private sector people are devotedly hardworking.

 

Greece:

In the 80ies the whole money of the European Union was invested in a really strong social system, not into the economy. It was impossible to end up under the bridge and there even were extra benefits and subsidies for really ridiculous rewards like appearing earlier in the office...

Now people are shocked as everything is cut but the ones who come to the demonstrations use to be the wealthy people, not the ones who really are loosing it all...

 

Germany:

Disabled people really are well treated as the system tries to make their life better and if I write with a complaint, immediately they try to better it - we have good representants of our interests.

I see a problem in the equality of information access. Internet is ferocious and more and more companies discriminate people without internet connection (only digital and no more paper invoices, offers only accessible per web, lack of service without internet, etc.). Apart, a good connection itself is very expensive. A cleaning women cannot afford to waste 30 Euro per month into optical fibre...

What will happen if we are all dependent on internet and then it is closed for people who can´t pay a handy or computer? I think even if facebook closes the free use some people will commit suicide...

 

Spain:

Gender equality is a big theme. Women are equal in the academic sector (Dekans and University professors). In rural regions still a very conservative mind dominates the people. My father didn´t let me go out as long as my brother, I always felt disadvantaged.
But good political campaigns have created a new sensibility regarding e.g. domestic violence: Now, if a woman is beaten by her husband, the police has to react and she gets protection immediately. He receives strong punishments and nobody can say any more: "it´s her own business, why did she marry him..."

On the other hand, now in the crisis and with so many people jobless, the right popular party wants to take the women from the list of the jobless, sending them to the hearth and idealizing family and procreation.

In the boom years, the left party only showed us famous carreer women, as all kind of working people were needed. Now in the crisis, the right party only shows us famous mothers and housekeeping ladies - we are instrumentalized as playing balls...

 

Poland:

Polish women are very keen on status, they even see boyfriends as a status symbol. After 3 years they are not more in love and they notice the man is just ballast and throw him away, even if he is the father of their children. If the partners don´t have the same idea of economical progress and don´t fulfill their mission as rich bread winner, this is the main reason for divorces...

The status mind is so strong that Polish think complaining is en vogue. They don´t take jobs in Poland as they aren´t satisfied with any. But then they go abroad, where nobody knows them and it turns out they are cleaners in London or au pair in France - jobs they never would have taken in Poland as there they want to keep the appearance of chic. All is on the surface...
Men get into a new role as housekeepers taking care of their children, cleaning and washing at home if they cannot fulfill the status aspiration of media and society.