The women's liberation movement in Finland

The Women's Liberation Movement in Finland is still very young. We did have, however, a strong suffragette movement between 1880 and 1910 but it faded out for all practical purposes after the granting of the vote in 1906.

The new wave of the women's movement reached us only sporadically during the 1960s. At the beginning of the 1970s new women's groups started as an extension of the left and anti-authoritarian movements although right from the beginning many women with no particular political backgrounds formed groups. These two different aspects gave rise to much discussion. Feminists were at first mainly Swedish-speaking but now Finnish-speaking women have embraced the cause and in fact form the majority. The feminists consist of free groups of women and the Union of the Women's Societies is a registered organization with sufficient status to allow it to make general statements on behalf of all women. During the last few years the perspective has changed from that of alleviating misery to that of ensuring dignity and attitudes towards feminists are slowly changing. The establishment of departments of women's studies must play its part in this rethinking, and research done in this field must be extended. There still remains a lot of work before the female view is a recognized and effective element in the process of decision making but there is room for optimism.