Centenary of women's political rights in Finland

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Women workers and the suffrage issue

Maria Lähteenmäki

The women workers' movement played a central role in the fight for suffrage in Finland at the beginning of the 20 th century. The activists of this movement were prominent participants in all the major social movements at the turn of the century, such as underground anti-tsarist activities, the 1905 General Strike Committee, the conscription strike of 1902-1904, and meetings and demonstrations associated with the suffrage and parliamentary reforms. Documents from this period show that women wrote dozens of pamphlets and articles and campaigned on streets, at markets and in parks and workers' halls for women's rights. They appealed to people's emotions but also showed an awareness of the policies of the international women's movement. How to explain the radicalism and astuteness of the demands voiced by poorly educated factory workers and daughters of crofters?

Rapid unionisation

Women's social activism was rooted in the difficulties they faced in their daily lives. Significantly, the earliest coalitions of women workers at the beginning of the 1890s were local trade union branches. The critique of working conditions soon grew into a wider campaign for political rights for all citizens. Combining their resources, women's rights activists established the national Women Workers' Union in summer 1900 (known as the Federation of Social Democratic Women since 1906). This union was created with strong support from the men of the Finnish Social Democratic Party, which had been established in 1899. The young party badly needed more supporters, and women who were under the guardianship of their husbands and suffered from a heavy workload were liable to respond positively to political agitation.

No popular movement has emerged out of a vacuum, and neither did the women workers' movement. The women learned the basics of organisational work not only in temperance and workers' associations, but also more concretely under the supervision of middle and upper class women. At the turn of the century, the activists of particularly the Union Women's Rights Federation in Finland supported women workers' attempts at becoming organised. The women were quick learners: at a suffrage meeting at the Old Student House in Helsinki in November 1904, Helena Westermarck of the Union Women’s Rights Federation noted with a sigh that "the socialists have had much more practice than we have had; they are much more experienced and have better presentation skills". It is clear that the members of small women's groups across the country had eagerly practised the conventions and procedures of meetings. Women also became accustomed to association work in sewing circles and drama and speech clubs.

The surprisingly rapid development of women workers into professional politicians was also backed by international precedents. As early as the French Revolution, women workers had taken to the barricades in the fight for their daily bread. Hunger was also a powerful source of motivation for women workers: "We want to expose without hesitation the misery in which a large number of people are condemned to live in modern society." As reference documents for their speeches, women workers used the magazines and other publications of labour parties, including August Bebel's Die Frau und Sozialismus (1879, Finnish translation in 1904) and N. F. af Ursin's Työväenkysymyksiä I–II (1897-1899). Women workers began to edit their own magazines in 1902. They published articles by the Germans Lily Braun and Clara Zetkin, the Russian Alexandra Kollontai and several women comrades from Sweden. In order to educate its members, the Women Workers' Union published a leaflet entitled "The suffrage issue from the perspective of women workers" in 1903.

Growing activism

By the turn of the century, women workers worked hard in numerous local civic organisations, but it was not until the suffrage issue arose that these women became engaged in public political action at the national level. The decision of the German Social Democratic Party in 1891 to include the demand for women's suffrage in its party programme set the foundation for the determined suffrage campaign by women workers. The Finnish Social Democratic Party adopted the same policy in 1899, after which various associations began a concrete campaign that included the publication of leaflets and the arrangement of lecture tours. The party invited the women it considered as the most able to attend party meetings and participate in training in political agitation so as to strengthen their ideological conviction and give them more practical experience. Not surprisingly, some of these women were later elected as the first women MPs in Finland.

Unrest in Russia in 1905 and the Finnish General Strike in November 1905 led to a culmination of the suffrage action. The significance of the women workers' movement was reflected in the appointment of two of its representatives, Ida Aalle and Mimmi Kanervo, as members of the General Strike Committee. The general public had also come round to accepting women's suffrage. In December 1905, women workers held large meetings and processions in support of suffrage in 63 localities; a total of some 22,000 people participated. The processions and the agitated speeches continued until the Estates approved the reform of the Diet and the related suffrage reform in May 1906. The determined action of women workers for their own civil rights thus lasted about seven years, a remarkably brief period compared with the decades of activism by the English and American suffragettes. The activism of Finnish women particularly affected the policies of their own party. In the end, external factors such as the defeat of the Tsar in the Russo-Japanese War and the resulting unrest in Russia led to a favourable outcome for Finnish women.

In the first parliamentary elections on 16 March 1907, nine social democrat women were elected as MPs: baker and businesswoman Ida Aalle, seamstress Anni Huotari, servant Mimmi Kanervo, weaver Jenny Kilpiäinen, seamstress Maria Laine, primary school teacher Hilja Pärssinen, seamstress Maria Raunio, seamstress Sandra Reinholdsson (later Lehtinen) and office manager Miina Sillanpää. All the elected women were founding members and leading figures of the Women Workers' Union.

Leading women politicians

More women MPs have been elected from the Finnish Social Democratic Party than any other party in Finland. Of all the women MPs elected between 1907 and 2003, 32% were social democrats, 21% were from the Finnish Party or the National Coalition Party and 13% were from the Agrarian Party or the Centre Party. Most of the women who have been appointed as government ministers have also been from the Left. As early as 1918 during the Finnish Civil War, the "Red" government appointed two women government ministers, Hilja Pärssinen and Hanna Karhinen. However, the best known woman government minister from the Finnish Left is probably Miina Sillanpää, who served in the 1926-1927 government. The first woman government ministers after the Continuation War (1941-1944), Tyyne Leivo-Larsson and Hertta Kuusinen, were also from the Left. Since then, social democrat women have been pioneers in Finnish politics: the first woman ambassador, the first woman governor of a Finnish province, the first woman minister for foreign affairs and the first woman president have all come from the Social Democratic Party. Women workers' persistent campaign for access to the corridors of power and the male-dominated political arena has clearly borne fruit since the start of that campaign in the 19 th century.

Literature and sources