“All possess alike liberty of conscience and immunities of citizenship. It is now no more that toleration is spoken of, as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people, that another enjoyed the exercise of their inherent national rights.” — George Washington, Letter to the Touro Synagogue, August 21, 1790

UNITED NATIONS

After years of difficult negotiations, the U.N. General Assembly voted on Friday to set up a body that will seek to improve the situation of women and girls around the world. The new body will be known officially as the U.N. Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, although officials say it will be referred to as U.N. Women (www.unwomen.org). It will consolidate four separate U.N. divisions now dealing with women’s and gender issues. “U.N. Women will significantly boost U.N. efforts to promote gender equality, expand opportunity, and tackle discrimination around the globe,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said in a statement. U.N. diplomats said four years of negotiations between Western developed nations and developing countries, many of them states where women are often discriminated against, had been tough because of varying views on women’s rights and gender equality. A new post of under-secretary-general will created to head U.N. Women, with diplomats saying privately that former Chilean President Michelle Bachelet is one of the top candidates. Ban said he was inviting suggestions for candidates from member states and non-governmental organizations. U.N. Women will focus on supporting inter-government bodies like the Commission on the Status of Women and ensuring that all United Nations agencies and organizations live up to their commitments to gender equality, the U.N. said in a statement. U.N. Women will become operational on January 1, 2011.

The Racial Limits of Empathy

from the magazine The Week

Empathy, a new study finds, is skin-deep. When people see someone else experiencing pain, they subtly respond as if they, too, have been harmed- a phenomenon called pain empathy.  But Italian scientists have found that pain empathy is greatly diminished if the two people belong to different races. In the study, two groups of subjects- one of African descent, the other, Italian- were asked to watch brief videos in which a hand was pricked by a needle.

One video showed a white hand being stuck; the other, a black hand. When subjects saw a hand being pricked, they registered a sympathetic pain reaction in sensors placed on their hands- but only if the hand they watched belonged to someone of their own race. Subjects who’d expressed more prejudice in the questionnaire also showed less empathy toward opposite-race hands they saw in the videos.  Intriguingly, both whites and blacks reacted empathetically when they saw a purple hand being pricked. “This is quite important, because it suggests that humans tend to empathize by default unless prejudice is at play,” study author Salvatore Aglioti tells CNN.com.

Although empathy in the real world is more complex, say co-author Alessio Avenanti, the findings raise the possibility that racial differences might unconsciously hinder the ability of doctors to empathize with some of their patients, “and may contribute to the causes of racial disparities in health care.”

More at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100527122141.htm