Selected projects
Four examples from roughly two decades of equality and diversity work.
Equality directive for the Austrian Ministry of Defence
The directive came into force in 2020 and provided the strategic framework for implementing equality in the armed forces. It was the concrete instruction for putting into practice the constitutional objective of actual equality between women and men, and it prohibited discrimination on the grounds of ethnicity, disability, religion or belief, age and gender identity.
Responsibility for implementation rested on three pillars: policy instructions and expert support from the management level, independent implementation by managers within their areas of responsibility, and the obligation of all staff to practise equality in the sense of equal worth and to avoid every form of discrimination.
The technical information was summarised in a companion booklet. Because language carries norms and values, a language guide for respectful usage was created as well.
All three documents were developed by Silvia Moosmaier.
GEWALTig – an event on structural violence and its prevention
Protection and support are core themes in defence and in sport. Examining the different forms of violence was the reason for the barrier-free event GEWALTig. In short, it was about safety through looking, recognising and acting.
The event worked with audiovisual means: a performed sequence on the effects and motives of violence (the play “Roter Rosen Regen” by Katharina Kutil) and short statements with frozen pictures. Among the speakers were the chairwoman of the women's shelter in Amstetten, the representative of troop and family support of the Land Forces Command Colonel Dr Otto Just, the special adviser to the minister and former member of parliament Dr Irmtraut Karlsson, the head of the section for women's affairs and equality Mag.a Ines Stilling, and the gender adviser of KFOR in Kosovo.
The gender adviser stressed how important it is for women in and after wars and conflicts to be able to talk to female soldiers. Women often lack any way of communicating their security needs to the right people because they hold neither offices nor positions in their own society. Negative and violent experiences with men make conversations with male peacekeepers even harder.
The guide “For respect and safety – against sexualised assault in sport” was also presented. To close the evening, Dr Irene Suchy of the radio station Ö1 auctioned art prints by the Austrian artist Elisabeth Bergner. The proceeds went to the Austrian Development Agency in Kosovo for a resilience project and to the women's shelter in Amstetten.
Idea, concept, frozen pictures and statements, leadership of the organising team, budgeting, marketing and public relations, and one of the performers: Silvia Moosmaier.
Developing equality training modules
Equality is a legal obligation: managers and staff must refrain from any form of discrimination and take the diversity of their target groups into account in all professional tasks. To implement this, a basic module and a deployment module were developed.
The basic module comprises an awareness section, a teaching section covering the fundamentals and a practical section. It is taught during basic training for both military personnel and civilian staff.
The deployment module conveys mission-related knowledge on applying an equality perspective in the respective area of operations. It adds equality to intercultural competence, in particular regarding the tasks of gender advisers and UN Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.
Identifying the need, concept, leading the development and drafting, and delivering the training: Silvia Moosmaier.
INCLUSION – International Day of Persons with Disabilities
In December 2017 an event for employees with disabilities took place at the Austrian armed forces for the first time. All employees with disabilities and their line managers were invited, as were the ministry's management level, disability organisations and political representatives from federal and regional government.
The aim was to show what people with disabilities achieve in daily and working life, to counter prejudice and to raise awareness. Soldiers in particular are at high risk during military operations and depend on their employer's care if something happens. In sport, too, people with disabilities face many obstacles.
Different means were used to raise awareness: short theatrical sequences and hands-on stations showed the obstacles of a working day. Participants could complete a course in a wheelchair or identify objects by touch alone.
Because employees with disabilities welcomed the event so warmly, it became an annual one. In addition, an equality forum for employees with disabilities was set up, which anyone can join voluntarily – in the spirit of the principle of self-determination, “nothing about us without us”.
Idea, concept, project management, leadership of the organising team, budgeting, marketing and public relations: Silvia Moosmaier.
Heart health – one project, several goals
After a chair for gender medicine was established at the University of Vienna in 2010, the physical diversity of women and men moved into the focus of research. It became visible that symptoms, diagnosis and treatment had taken too little account of that diversity – for example that a heart attack presents differently in women than in men.
Because the best possible medical care for military and civilian personnel matters, a two-year research project was set up with the Medical University of Vienna.
The results showed that workplace health promotion reduces the number of days lost to illness. As a consequence, all employees were given the opportunity to exercise for one hour per week.
The medical process was structured into two main examinations, training sessions and review meetings. Information events accompanied the study, covering healthy eating, healthy blood vessels, stress management, hidden sugar and memory. In the active groups the content was put into practice: participants cooked themselves, learning to prepare fresh meals and to choose portion sizes that matched their exercise programme.
- Making the benefits of gender medicine visible (equality objective).
- Broad, low-threshold workplace health promotion and awareness of one's own state of health (occupational medicine).
- Encouraging communication across departments and hierarchies through the shared goal of heart health (organisational culture).
- Researching the influence of exercise and sport on atherosclerosis biomarkers (Vienna General Hospital and Medical University of Vienna).
Idea, concept, project management, leadership of the organising team, hosting and moderating the events, running the line dance focus group, budgeting, marketing and public relations: Silvia Moosmaier.
