Centenary of women's political rights in Finland

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Promotion of gender equality in Finland examined through equality promotion projects from the 1970s to the early 21st century

Kristiina Brunila

Since the 1970s, the promotion of gender equality in Finland has appeared to be equality promotion implemented through so-called equality projects. This, in turn, has had implications on how equality itself and support practices have been shaped. Equality projects and the field of equality promotion have been loci of tensions and hierarchical power relations in which negotiations of power, agency and knowledge have taken place. In my research, I examine how equality, gender and agency in equality promotion have been constructed in the texts of equality projects and in the descriptions of individuals working in the field of equality promotion. I examine and unveil the presumptions, meanings, differences and lines of separation found in the discourses of equality promotion in Finland. At the same time, I examine how influence has been brought to bear on discussions about equality has been done and who has even had the possibility of bearing such influence. In this article, I present some social movements that have had an impact on how equality has been defined in public discourse at different times.

In Finland, gender equality has been activated through the demands social movements have made in connection with it (Holli, Saarikoski, Sana 2002). This can be detected also in equality projects that have been implemented in Finland. When scrutinising equality through equality promotion projects, we can see that equality has not progressed to an ever better and a more advanced state of affairs, but has instead been situational and historical (Brunila, Heikkinen, Hynninen 2005) [1]. Since the 1970s, equality promotion projects implemented in Finland have sought and established a position of their own as a specific kind of speech that has also influenced political decision-making. A certain manner of rendering equality has been built up through these projects to the extent that it has begun to present itself as the somewhat natural and only possible action for supporting equality.

Working in these projects has been an important way of finding employment and making a living, especially for women, but also a way of developing cooperation, expertise and know-how. The texts of these projects, their goals, their modes of action and their implementation have been intertwined. The people working in these projects have gotten to know each other, they have read each other’s texts, have taken part in events and discussions and built various kinds of cooperation networks that have, in turn, facilitated the initiation of new projects and the emergence of network-based equality promotion. The relatively well-established position of project-based equality promotion has been linked to complex national and international power relations. These power relations have defined whose and what kind of equality has been seen as meaningful and deserving of economic resources at a given time.

Since the 1970s there have been different periods to be identified and named in the life cycles of these projects. I will briefly introduce two of these periods. I call the earliest project period the TANE (Council of Gender Equality) period, which was influenced by the feminist movement as well as international and national discussion about women’s liberation and inequality in Finland. In 1966, a committee set up by the Finnish government made suggestions which, on their part were included as the content of the new ‘gender contract’ negotiated by women, and at the same time as the negotiation of gender vis-à-vis the state apparatus (Julkunen 1994). The Council of Gender Equality was founded in 1972 out of a suggestion of the committee, and TANE became a central instance in the initiation of the earliest equality promotion projects in Finland. The objectives of these projects were defined as the rights and possibilities of women to combine family and employment. TANE initiated various surveys and studies of inequalities in working life – the first projects focused on eliminating these injustices. For example, the Discrimination Project implemented in 1973 dealt with combating gender-based discrimination. Equality in the field of education was also a central concern. In 1973 TANE initiated a project for breaking down gender roles in education and in the work of employment agencies. The objectives of the projects implemented in the 1970s, such as the elimination of gender-based discrimination, differential treatment and the obstacles in women’s career development and the promotion of equal pay still surface in the aims of projects in the early 21st century.

In my research, another period making its mark on the definition of equality I have termed the EU policy period. The period began when Finland joined the European Union, at which point the number of projects increased and there was heightened public discourse regarding these projects. Objectives and priorities imported from equality policy and social, employment and educational policies of the European Union began to surface on a national level in the aims of the projects. In practice, the equality obligation laid down in EU structural policy as a mainstreaming principle was interpreted as directing actions specifically towards women. In consequence, a lot of projects implemented in Finland after the mid-1990s were specified as so-called women’s projects, and their number has remained high until this day. In the objectives of women’s projects, equality is mainly tied to actions aiming at changing the educational and professional choices made by girls and women. Women’s projects have also helped in generating employment support actions, various cooperation and women’s networks, resource centres aimed at women, local initiatives and actions for regional development as well as enterprises and cooperatives in different parts of Finland. Women have supported each other in networking, education and finding employment and national and regional politics. Sensitivity towards differences between women, an avoidance of individualism and a critical attitude towards focusing on the market economy can also be read in the texts of these projects. Along with women’s projects, teacher education and the practices of paid employment were named as the targets of equality promotion. In the late 1990s, combining work and (heterosexual) family life, equality plans and work evaluation were included in the discourses of the projects. There was a desire to make a gender perspective part of all training and development, and so began the mainstreaming of equality.

In the period of EU policy equality, equality discourse began to display more market-oriented traits such as increasing governance, effectiveness actions, evaluation, measurement, good practices and the conceptualisation of equality as a product. Equality has sometimes been promoted from the viewpoint of economic gain. In the 1990s, EU structural funds, community initiatives and programmes, all of which include an obligation to promote equality, serve to influence the shaping of national project discourses and their modes of action. As the interests of paid employment were enhanced, cooperation networks expanded. On the other hand, in the work of the EU, attention was focused also on the realisation of human rights and fundamental rights. This had effects in the shaping of national projects and modes of action, for example, in the fact that legitimation for equality could be sought in something other than a binary opposition.

The early 21st century appears to be a period of programmes in which funding seems to be going towards large-scale equality projects utilising technology in some way, and which are made up of several partial projects or sub-projects and possessing an extensive cooperation network. An interesting finding in the examination of these projects has been movement in the discourses of equality and gender. Market-orientedness seems to have become a fundamental element in the projects. Concerning the goals of the projects, the concept of equality that used to seek legitimacy in dichotomy has been converted to that of diversity, making the most of it and improving people’s expertise for the benefit of the job market. However, discussion about gender and the meanings of other differences attached to it, awareness of power structures in society and the job market and unravelling the heteronormative gender regime have been included more and more in the diversity discourses. On the other hand, discussions concerning gender roles, fervent in the 1960s, has manifested itself in the goals and practices of the projects.

Notes

[1]The first time equality promotion projects were implemented in Finland and were taken as a research subject was in 2003 when the EQUAL National Thematic Network Job Desegregation project was begun. The aim of the project was to find solution for desegregation in the job market. For this end, equality promotion projects from the 1970s to the year 2003 were analysed, which amount to about 300. In addition, about 30 veterans of equality promotion professionals and employees of these projects were interviewed in order to find out what should be done differently, which practices should be strengthened in the fields of education and the job market, and how they should be strengthened in order to achieve lasting results. In addition, a book was published: Brunila, K, Heikkinen, M & Hynninen, P 2005. Monimutkaista mutta mahdollista. Hyviä käytäntöjä tasa-arvotyöhön, (http://www.womenit.info/kansallinen_teematyo.php). Finally, my doctoral thesis is based upon the research done in this project. In addition to the authors mentioned above, consultant Leena Teräs, professor Marja Vehviläinen, professor Elina Lahelma, professor Päivi Korvajärvi, docent Vappu Sunnari and docent Helena Karasti took part in the planning of the project which was coordinated by the University of Oulu.

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