Women's Role in Finnish Democracy Building
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Aura Korppi-Tommola Women’s Role in Finnish Democracy Building The Finnish Experience MINISTRY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF FINLAND Contents The industrious mistress of the farm: Before industrialisation 3 Industrialisation and urbanisation 6 Building Democracy 1917-1945 9 Reconstruction 12 Finnish society today: still on the road toward equality 17 DEMO FINLAND – Political Parties of Finland for Democracy 20 COVER photo: JYRKI Komulainen / Gorilla The industrious mistress of the farm: Before industrialisation Everyday partnership in agriculture from their neighbours. Life then could best be described as hard work under harsh Finnish democracy is based on a very old conditions, in a constant battle with an Nordic system of democracy. Finland was unforgiving climate: everyone on the farm part of Sweden for almost 700 years before it had to work to survive. Large, extended was annexed to the Russian tsarist empire in families, which included several generations 1809, following the war between Sweden and as well as the hired men who worked outside Russia. Finland had an autonomous position and the hired girls who worked indoors and as part of Russia, and was allowed to develop in the dairy production, formed a community its own national Parliament, which had four in which all the members had to get along Estates: the Nobility, the Bourgeoisie, the with each other. They had to work together, 3 Clergy (Lutheran Protestant Church), and and they also had to satisfy the family the Peasantry (Fourth Estate), composed of members’ need for a social life. wealthy farmers who owned their land and The work of the farm was divided, for paid taxes. the most part, clearly into ‘man’s work’ and Finland was a very agricultural country. ‘woman’s work’. Women took care of the The land was cultivated by independent daily housework and the domestic animals. peasant farmers, or by the tenant farmers The men cultivated the fields and went (‘rented farm workers’, called ‘torpparit’, hunting and fishing. Often, however, it was who lived and worked on large estates). necessary to be flexible about this division, Urban centres were few in number, and as the many foreign wars would take the relatively small. The largest towns in Finland, men away to battlegrounds abroad, as Turku and Helsinki had only a few thousand happened in the 30 Years War from 1618 inhabitants each at the beginning of the – 1648, and the Great Northern War at the 1800s. beginning of the 1700s. Peasants lived close to the fields they There has never been a large ruling class cultivated: families were isolated and far in Finland, and what there was, was primarily composed of people whose ancestors had by the Church from both parties applying for come from outside of Finland. The civil a marriage license. Both the bride and the servants and the priesthood lived modestly, groom had to be able to read the Bible before even though they mostly came from the they could get married. Swedish-speaking ‘upper class’. The ordinary folk spoke Finnish. The numerically small A literate folk upper class was relatively poor, and even the women of this class could not escape Traditionally the parish churches arranged working in the household. The Finnish literacy education for older children and folk were thus very homogenous, and they adults, and in remote areas children were all struggled together against the harsh also educated at home. Public institutions conditions of life in Finland. of education were meant for men who According to the old Swedish land wanted to become priests or civil servants. laws, women were always to be under the The daughters of the numerically small guardianship of male relatives. They needed upper class were educated in the home or a father, husband, brother, or some other in small, private, schools for girls, which close male relative as guardian. Only as were particularly active in the 1800s. Public 4 widows could women have any power over schools for girls were introduced to Finland themselves and their property, and become from Russia, where the Empress Catherine II the guardians of their children. If she married The Great had begun the education of young again, a widow lost her independent position. ladies. The Finnish town of Viipuri was the In the rural areas, a daughter inherited only first in the country to establish a public girls’ half of what a son inherited, but in the urban school, at the end of the 1700s. This was cities children had equal inheritance rights quickly followed by the establishment of regardless of their gender. Ownership of land similar schools elsewhere in Finland. In the was, and remained, however, primarily in latter half of the 19th century, both public the hands of men; males inherited land while and private schools for girls were established females inherited assets such as personal in many Finnish towns. items, cattle and grain. Elementary schools, separate from The common people obtained their the Church, were set up in the 1860s. At minimal education from the Church. the same time, teachers’ seminaries were Following the Reformation, the Lutheran established, where women also had the right Church taught and controlled the teaching of to study. The townships were obliged to the minimal literacy requirements required maintain an elementary school, but sending a speciallicense: beginninginthe1870s, decide. children toschoolwasup totheparents rural regions. The basisforcooperationbetweenwomenandmenwas the divisionofdailyworkinsparselyinhabited For studying at university, womenneeded For studyingatuniversity, composed of women. 10% ofthestudentbody inuniversitieswas such alicense.Asthe1900s arrived,over many womenbeganactively applyingfor Photo: MANNERHEIM League for CHILD Welfare. 5 Industrialisation and urbanisation Factory girls and servant maids for their families even after they became wives. They would work as cleaners or take Finland began to industrialise and become in laundry. The first folk kindergartens more urbanised in the 1800s. This meant that were opened, and training of kindergarten the need for people to move from the country teachers began. Schools for domestic science to urban centres increased. It also meant and horticulture were founded, beginning at that women needed the right to, for example, the end of the 19th century, as occupational make work contracts in their own name, schools for the women of the countryside. without the permission of a (male) guardian. There were also schools for the care of Outside of agricultural communities, by the domestic animals, meant especially for early 1900s it was already quite common that women, and schools to educate women as 6 unmarried women were active in the labour future farmers’ wives. market, and earned their own living. Almost Women’s financial independence all of them were working in private families improved slowly, step by step. The complete as servants, in factories, or as shop assistants. independence of unmarried women was Women were especially in demand as workers written into law in 1864, but upon marriage in textile mills and in the tobacco industry. women lost this independence. The age at By the latter half of the 19th century both which women could attain independence was women and men had freedom of choice as lowered in 1898; and in connection with this regarded their occupation. Young women from new law, the possibilities for married women the upper and middle classes began to work to have more control over their own property in banks and the post office, and to serve as improved. Since 1889, married women have public civil servants, teachers, and nurses. had the right of control over the income they The first women researchers began their personally earned. Married women were still careers in science. under the guardianship of their husbands, In the working class milieu, most women however, and could not make contracts in continued to participate in earning money their own names. Universal and equal suffrage The autonomic Grand Duchy of Finland Election Process carried out a vast and sweeping Parliamentary In Finland, elections are organised so that a person reform in 1906. The old Parliament of the gives his or her vote to an individual, who represents Four Estates was done away with, and a single a party, so that both the individual and the party chamber Parliament was created. The right get one vote. Several candidates stand for election to vote for representatives to Parliament was in each district, and voters vote in the district where extended to all Finnish adults, women as they live and are registered. All the votes for a given well as men, and everyone had only one vote, party are added up, and the party total determines regardless of their wealth or social position. the number of representatives elected from that Women could also stand for election as party. Within the party, the representatives are then Members of Parliament. chosen on the basis of the number of individual The reform of Parliament began a new votes each candidate has been given. The party period in Finnish history. Today’s political candidate with the most individual votes gets half parties began to emerge. In the first the votes given to the party, the next most, half of Parliamentary Elections for the reformed the remaining half, and so on. This means that in Parliament, held in 1907, the Social practice who wins the seat is not decided on the 7 Democrats won, and the upper classes had basis of a list agreed upon beforehand by the party, to learn how to cooperate with Members but that voters themselves have a choice which of Parliament from all classes of society, candidate will be elected. including the working classes. This election also brought women into the cooperative decision-making process, since The Finnish electoral process favours 19 of the new MPs were women.