Women's Rights

Another one of the subjects I touched upon briefly in a previous blog is that of Women's Rights/Gender Equality. One of the most admirable things I find about the country of Finland is the fact that women in society are one hundred percent completely equal to men. The nation has always been very liberal with regards to the rights of women, and in 2006 Finland celebrated its Centenarry of full political womens rights. It was the first country in the world to grant universal and equal voting rights to women in 1906 and furthermore, one year later in 1907, nineteen female politicians were elected into Parliament.

The workforce in Finland has always been about half and half, though women recieved about 2/3 the salary that men did for a while. Today however, the workforce is still split evenly as is average annual income between males and females. Half of the nation's doctors are women, and a series of laws passed in the late 70's and 80's provide women with rights that I realize, my own culture (American culture, which prides itself on equality) has never and seemingly will never consider.

In 1972 the Council for Equality was established in order to support women's rights. A series of laws were passed that granted parents equal rights for custody of their children. in 1985 a law was passed that granted citizenship to any child born of a Finnish woman and in '86 another law gave women the ability to choose their children's surnames.

I find that these allowances go further than the american definition of equality. I feel as though in America, if this were the case, it would be seen as an unfair advantage to women to have these liberties.

I read that since the mid 80's the nation has devoted itself to equalizing men and women and has made incredible advances. In '88, the Population Crisis Committee out of Washington deemed Finland one of the best/safest places for a women to live. A very close second to Sweden but beating out the US which came in third.

As mentioned earlier, Finland's current president is a woman, though she is not the first to be in office, and May 8th is celebrated annually as Women's Day in Finland.

America is the land of the free, exhibits democracy and equal rights for all, but is not necessarily a world leader in this department. Finland which has had women holding high-up political titles since 1906 has all the while exhibited more equality and less discrimination, but remains overlooked by Americans. We who do not notice how culturally advanced this nation is remain to think of it (if we ever do think of it) as sparse and far away, with little involvement in world politics and no real credible contributions to the world as a whole.