Maryan Abdulkarim is a Somali-Finnish writer and feminist community organizer.
HELSINKI — Last Sunday, Sanna Marin, the 34-year-old Finnish Social Democrat, became the world’s youngest sitting prime minister — and Finland’s third female government leader. A picture of the five women who head up Finland’s five coalition parties — four of whom are under 35 — took social media by storm.
Overnight, it seemed, the world discovered Finland, the feminist utopia.
Finland may arguably be miles ahead when it comes to women’s rights, but the country is far from the feminist haven it may seem from the outside.
True, it was an early trailblazer. In 1906, Finland became the first country to expand voting rights to women; it even allowed them to run for office, though the new laws initially still excluded people from voting if they were dependent on economic assistance. Women entered the work force en masse following the Winter War — Finland’s military conflict with Russia, which lasted from November 1939 until March 1940 — to help pay off the country’s war debts to Moscow. And they never left.
But scratch below the surface and Finnish society is still far from being gender-balanced. Working life was and remains gendered — there are so-called masculine and feminine fields, and, as elsewhere, there is a significant pay gap between men and women who perform the same work. A recent survey found Finland was the second-most violent European country for women, and a wave of #MeToo accusations has brought to light the ways in which sexual harassment is normalized in Finnish society.
It’s still too early to tell what Finland’s new government will be able to achieve.
To be sure, the optics of a new government led by five female political leaders are hugely encouraging. The fact they were elected shows they live in a country where women are encouraged to run for office. It also shows they have messages that resonate with voters.
It’s still too early to tell what Finland’s new government will be able to achieve. But if the dynamics of the past decades hold any lessons for them, they should be wary of the “Obama factor” that has so profoundly changed the landscape of the United States. Finland may have made progress on paper, but anything that has been achieved can also be undone.
It’s happened before: Finland’s first female president, the left-wing politician Tarja Halonen, was elected in 2000 and reelected six years later. Then the pendulum swung back the other way, when voters elected Sauli Niniistö, an older male politician from the conservative National Coalition Party, as the country’s next president.
Across Europe, voters are increasingly turning to conservative parties for reassurance during turbulent political times when democracy appears to be under attack. They want “father figures” to help them navigate the uncertainty.
Finland has come a long way. But being on the path to progress is not the same as being a utopia.
Finland is not immune. No matter how progressive the current government, the risk is that there will be a backlash and a return of the dependable “father figure” in the next election. This is how the patriarchy operates: We are still conditioned to look for male figures, preferably older, to step in and offer remedies to our perceived ills.
The “simpler times” many right-wing voters long for are long gone. And indeed, Marin’s rise to the position of prime minister is a testament to how far we’ve moved from the era when politics was an exclusive men’s club. Marin, who grew up poor, is also a living example of the fact that — in a welfare state like Finland — it’s possible to pursue a career in politics without connections and deep pockets.
But there’s also the risk that the new prime minister — a Social Democrat who entered politics early and was raised by two women in what she describes as a “rainbow family” — will become a target for conservative disgruntlement over the pace of change.
Finland has come a long way. But being on the path to progress is not the same as being a utopia. It would be dangerous to claim victory too soon.