Once again there is talk of reprehensible attitudes of a political woman, instead of talking about her policies, her ideas, her abilities. This time she touched Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin. Since the tabloid Iltalehti posted videos of her dancing Along with her friends, she was questioned by the press and the political opposition. She is accused of dancing “wildly with several men”, being “clearly intoxicated”, acting “like a 20-year-old single woman”, neglecting “her duties as prime minister”. She defended herself: “I danced, I sang, I did legal things” , “I am human”. But nothing seems enough to calm the indignation that arises here and there. What is it that bothers so much? That she is a woman? That she is the youngest minister in that country and the third in the world in that role? What drives the gender agenda or Finland’s entry into NATO?
The videos and photos in which she is seen dancing with friends and celebrities were released last weekend and soon went viral on networks and reached the media around the world. Perhaps the most pronounced and written word was, as it usually is in these cases, “scandal”, accompanied by the other that is used when you do not want to qualify, but… “controversial”. So it was that because of the “controversial” video, a political and media “scandal” was created. The extreme right of the Finns Party demanded that he submit to a drug test. “In recent days, quite serious allegations have been made public that I have used drugs. For my own legal protection, although I consider the requirement of a drug test to be unreasonable, I have submitted to a drug test to erase such suspicions. “Marin assured the press. Finally, the test came back negative.. Although that was not the end point because photos continued to appear and the end who knows when and how it will be.
Meanwhile, there were negative reactions from some sectors of the population and opposition politicians and other positive ones, such as a campaign by women from Finland and Denmark entitled “solidarity with Sanna” and that of Isabel Rodríguez, spokesperson for the Spanish government, who said that such “Assessments would never have been made if instead of having been a prime minister she had been a prime minister.”
It is not the first time that Sanna Marin has been discredited for issues that are not related to her political work. In 2020 she was criticized for appear with a cleavage pronounced in the magazine Trends, for which she was described as “inappropriate”, “ridiculous” and they said that with that neckline the only thing she was achieving was “eroding her credibility”. At the time, she also generated a wave of support on social media from women around the world posing in cleavage with the hashtag #ImwithSanna (“I’m with Sanna”). In July this year, she was criticized for attending the Ruisrock music festival in a loose outfit. And the list goes on.
Marin had previously been attacked for having worked as a supermarket cashier and for having been raised in a home with two mothers. Since taking power in 2019, he has taken quite a few hits. What you have to think about is why. Clearly they are not just attacks on a woman, but on a woman with power. It is because of her role and the interests with which she deals that she is surely questioned, as evidenced by the special cruelty that women in politics receive, especially those who make power groups and the status quo uncomfortable.
a woman who arrives
When women get out of the stereotype of femininity, which still wants them at home and passive, problems appear, stigma, moral judgment about their private behavior.
The Social Democratic leader became prime minister at the age of 34. In addition to dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine in the European country that shares the longest border with Russia (1,342 kilometers), Marin took a turn in foreign and security policy in his country, promoting Finland’s entry into the NATO. She next week she will lead the proposal to impose a European veto on Russian tourism.
The first photo of Marin to go viral was taken in December 2019, the first day of her new job. As Finland’s new and youngest prime minister, Marin posed alongside the other politicians who would lead her centre-left coalition government. All women. Since then, one of its fundamental axes has been the Equality Program, which includes policies to encourage parents to share equitably the care responsibilities of children and adolescents, to prevent domestic violence, to close the gender pay gap and to improve educational outcomes in poorer backgrounds and immigrant families.
political violence
Let us remember that the participation of women in political life was prevented until well into the 20th century. Finland is one of the pioneer countries in allowing women to vote, in 1906, although in view of what happened with Marin, one must think that there is still a long way to go so that the exercise of political power in the hands of women can be carried out in equal footing. What happens to Marin cannot be left unread in relation to what numerous political women have experienced.
Focusing on the intimacy and personal life of women is still a common practice to discredit the professional practice of women in general, and policies in particular. Phrases like “she came because she slept with such and such” or “she is the lover of so-and-so” talk about that. Do not forget that Dilma Roussef was accused of being a lesbiantaking for granted that their sexual orientation could be an insult and, on the other hand, an obstacle to the exercise of their functions.
It seems especially irritating that women can give themselves space for leisure and enjoyment. In 2008, when Michelle Bachellet she was president of Chile, a great stir was created because photos of her with an assistant bathing in the sea came out on a beach in Costa do Sauípe, Brazil, during a break from his participation in the second plenary session of the Summit of Latin America and the Caribbean (CLAC).
The accent placed on the physical appearance of women is also common. If we talk about necklines, impossible to forget the rivers of ink that ran when Angela Merkel, the iron lady, dared to wear a neckline at the opening of an opera in Oslo. He was also called “teflon face” and “buttery ass”. And it is a deeply rooted custom, moreover, to read about the dresses, the handbags, the botox or the fatness of candidates or politicians in office.
Cristina Fernandez She was one of the most criticized, not only because of her appearance and her attitudes (arrogant, bossy) but for his mental health (chronic depressed, bipolar, hysterical), which clearly alludes to the stereotype of the crazy woman. Impossible to forget the “horse” with which she was named without saying her name, which aims to reduce whoever receives it to a non-human category, as has been done since the Colony with those considered “deviant”, women from popular sectors and indigenous and black populations. .
The Buenos Aires legislator Ophelia Fernandez suffered numerous episodes of harassment, insults and assaults since assuming that position. Her case touches in some way with Marin’s because the two represent not only a feminist but a young look. “I got used to any of my interventions receiving the same responses. It doesn’t matter what I’m saying at the time. They attack my body, my personal life. It is political violence for reasons of gender, as long as it does not go through the debate of ideas“, he told the media. More here we cannot fail to mention the harassment for her way of dressing and her physical appearance suffered by the former Minister of Economy Silvina Batakis. It clearly shows the irritation caused by a woman who was also not approved by the market and the concentrated powers occupying a stagnantly masculine place such as the Ministry of Economy.
In recent years, a specific name has been given to these episodes: political violence. This figure is incorporated in Argentina in Law 26485 on violence against women. “Political violence for reasons of gender constitutes an obstacle that prevents the full participation and exercise of political rights of women and diversities,” says the Political-Electoral Observatory of the Ministry of the Interior.
The Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the international organization of national Parliaments, made in 2016 a study in thirty-nine countries, and found that 40% of women who participated in legislative bodies had received threats, injuries, rape, death or pressure during their tenure. 80% of female legislators reported having been subjected to psychological attacks, sexist comments and humiliation. A fifth of the interviewees mentioned having been a victim of sexual violence.