COMMENTARY: Gender equality in a nation motivated by fear
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By Hannu Raittila
"I believe that gender equality will not be achieved until we have a government in which the portfolios of the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Trade and Industry, and the Prime Minister are all held by women."
The above statement by Pia Kauma was in a letter to the editor published by this newspaper on the 30th of September.
I believe that the government imagined by Kauma will materialise in the blink of an eye of cultural history. When it does, I will welcome the event with a sense of relief. However, I do not imagine that a government composed of women will mean that equality will have been achieved.
I believe that a thorough feminisation of the government would change the way Finnish politics operates as little as a woman CEO would change Nokia, or a woman Pope would ultimately shake the practices of the Catholic Church. Pia Kauma's view of the significance of women holding key ministerial portfolios only strengthens my belief.
The important component of Kauma's analysis of women as key ministers is the word "key" and not the word "woman".
If women were bringing something new and healthy to the way that the political elite is organised, they would not speak of key ministries, and of taking them over. Instead, they would talk about government cooperation, the principles of parliamentarism, and citizenship.
Finnishness and femininity are defined by the same basic experience: the fear of violence and the feeling of being under threat.
The only geography is the geography of fear. The Winter War is always looming, famine is always around the corner, and everyone is always walking on ice that is just one night old.
For the smallest of reasons, Finns will set up a war cabinet. It is on such a basis that Finland dealt with the most recent threat to its existence - the recession of the 1990s.
Trust in the consensual common wisdom of small groups is so self-evident here that the Swedish tolerance for conflict in decision-making, or the British type of proto-parliamentarism involving thorough discussion looks like a kindergarten from a Finnish perspective.
Most recently, Max Jakobson proposed a dictatorship of seven wise persons. I do not understand how things would be better from the point of view of democracy if the seven were all women.
Finns think that they have achieved equality and that they have a propensity to help one another. However, we also have opposite tendencies. The history of emergencies and living under constant threat has nurtured within us harsh toughness, severe sternness, and a kind of single-mindedness that shuts mouths. This could be seen in the way that the country was led during the economic crisis 14 years ago.
In typically Finnish fashion, the recession was seen as a battle over life and death similar to war or famine. Accordingly, viable companies were ruthlessly pushed into bankruptcy to be destroyed in a manner similar to divisions of soldiers sent to charge at enemy lines. Debtors and guarantors of debts were sacrificed like cannon-fodder in a desperate assault. There was no choice. The country was under threat.
People died and were injured, lives were destroyed, homes were devastated. Was our sacrifice in vain? Yes, it was. The recession was no Winter War. All that happened was that GDP in one of the world's most prosperous countries briefly dipped to a level where it had been just a few years earlier.
Would women have dealt with the recession any differently if they had been key ministers?
Not if they had understood that they are an elite with responsibility, isolating themselves from their colleagues, Parliament, and the people.
Being a woman would not have helped them.
They would have been Finnish ministers in any case, standing tall under threat, bearing their responsibility in solitude.
Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 19.10.2005
The author is a Finnish writer, and this piece was originally published in the paper's Culture section.
Helsingin Sanomat
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| 25.10.2005 - THIS WEEK |
 COMMENTARY: Gender equality in a nation motivated by fear |
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