Is Gender Equality Work still Needed in Finland?

The previous parliament consisted of only female ministers.

In Finland, a woman can freely choose which industry to work in.

All doors are open, even the corporate ones, and the best are chosen to fil the positions.

Finland is second only to Iceland in the world gender equality statistics.

All true, so we can only be satisfied with our equality work, right?

At the same time, Finland is the second most dangerous country for women in Europe.

In Finland, homicides usually are between marginalized, alcoholic men, and the second most common type of homicide is homicides against women by their partner. An average of 15 women have died each year in Finland as a result of domestic violence in the 2010s. 

One in three women (32%) has encountered physical violence or threats of it in their relationship at some point in their lives. The most violent country in Europe for women is Denmark, and third place is taken by Sweden. Why are the Nordic welfare states at the top of the violence statistics?

Married women gained the right to work without their husband's consent in 1919, two years after independence. But of course not to work any job, but do the "jobs suitable for women" assigned to women by men, such as in health care and teaching fields.

Once upon a time, TietoEVRY did an experiment in which they tried to break the eternal myth that "women just don't apply for the technology industry jobs".

In the Nordic countries, about 21% of jobs in the ICT sector are held by women. The challenge in increasing the share is the low number of female applicants. TietoEVRY decided to take up the challenge by modifying its job advertisements. By changing gendered expressions in job ads to neutral ones, the number of female applicants increased by an average of 32%.

So is it fundamentally a matter of women "just not applying" to the field, or of structural, perhaps even unconscious discrimination?

In 1930, a new marriage law was enacted, which freed the married wife from her husband's guardianship and gave women the right to own property.

Until the Marriage Act of 1929, the husband had the right to income from his wife's property and the right to represent his wife in legal matters. Until then, the wife, as well as real estate, was under the control of the husband.

This means that I am only the third generation in my family to be born with this right.

1962 Finland ratified the ILO equal pay agreement, in 1980 the Finnish government adopted the first equality program and the law on equality between women and men entered into force in 1987.

Considering that, it is strange that we still have inexplicable wage differences in 2023.

According to a study by economists, a male economist earns over €290,000 more during his career when parental leave, sick leave, overtime and other explanatory factors are removed from the equation. Why is this still the case?

Finland is used to being thought of as a model country for equality, and without a doubt, at the beginning of the 20th century, we were pioneers in clearing these rights for women and we have showed the world a model.

However, we are just knocking on the lower limit of equality in the number of managers (37%) here in Finland, while countries like Poland, Bulgaria and Latvia are ahead of us. In listed companies, the situation is even worse (only 18% of female directors).

We rejoiced at our all-female government and patted ourselves on the back when last season 47% of our MPs were women (now 46%).

Ahead of us are countries such as Rwanda (61.3%), Cuba (53.4%) and Nicaragua (51.7%) and Finland comes in 13th place, after countries such as the United Arab Emirates, Costa Rica, South Africa and Bolivia. 

I personally think that equality work is still needed. What do you think?

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