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The library of essays of Proakatemia

Women can be spelled without a man.



Kirjoittanut: Emilia Parikka - tiimistä FLIP Solutions.

Esseen tyyppi: Blogiessee / 1 esseepistettä.
Esseen arvioitu lukuaika on 4 minuuttia.

Mona Bling, a journalist, feminist and podcast host for Kroonisesti Ärhäkkä came to give a speech for tradenomi students on 11th of March. I gathered here my thoughts and the most interesting parts of her speech. Content warning: If feminism triggers you feeling attacked, please continue reading with caution or just simply choose another essay to read.

 

Mona talked about how unequal history us women have and how recent these changes actually are. In 1901 women got equal rights to study in the same schools with men and in 1906 we got the right to vote. After we got the right to vote and go to school it still took 20 something years to get us the right to work without needing a permission from a man (husband, father or other living male relative). This came to be in 1930 and with the same law women got the right to their own money. Imagine that, before this law anything a woman earned belonged to their husband.

 

Even though we had the right to work, we were not seen as equals and this was best seen in salary. Women were payed lower salary due to the fact that they were seen as inferior workers. In the 60s we finally got equal pay agreement and in the 70s pay discrimination became illegal. However, did you know that it has been legal to discriminate someone based on their gender identity 35 years ago? Yes, only in 1987 it was made illegal. To me, seeing the years when these laws have been made really opened my eyes of how new equality actually is here in Finland and why there still is so much work to be done.

 

There has been a lot of talk about how woman’s euro is 0,80€ and currently it actually is 0,84€ and according to Mona, if this is the pace it grows we’ll reach full euro in 2090. Mona wanted to encourage more women to apply for leader positions and take part in negotiations, decision making etc. In order to push this forward. I agree with her, we can’t expect change by sitting at home and complaining, instead we need to take action and push forward.

 

Mona was wondering if women should play by the same rules on business as men. I don’t think we should, I think we should make our own rules and push the industries to adapt to our way of working. This would actually be a good thing since studies have shown that companies with female leads are actually more succesful. Very strict and cold way of leading is also a factor when we talk about burn-out. Especially younger generations are no longer willing to work for heartless assholes, but want to be listened. 

 

I have found that women are more willing to listen others and more often want to make sure their workers/coworkers are okey. Maybe it’s the fact that I’m empathetic myself and want to always make sure people around me are not pushing themselves into burn-out. Women are more willing to make things to benefit the community and this can honestly be seen at Proakatemia too. If you look at the people organizing events and other things at Proakatemia it’s (always!) way more than half women.

 

According to Mona, it’s going to be painful to change the work industry. For women the painful part is that we need to push and stay strong when facing obstacles. Men will face the fact that they are no longer always in charge and deciding how things should be done and realizing that everything is not about you can really hurt. To me this makes perfect sense if you think about any conversation that is being had about women’s rights, there’s always at least one man who says ”What about me”, well honey this is not about you, so maybe just listen for once.

 

 

If we think about medicine and history of how medical professionals have treated and labeled women, it has been truly dangerous to our health. Women have been labeled hysterical and treated with very unethical ways like forced masturbation or unnecessary surgeries. Medical professionals have had power that has been used against us. The research on female specific diseases is still very limited and there are inaccurate assumptions about ”virginity” that actually threaten our lives. (That’s a whole bigger topic for another essay thoug, should I write it? Comment below!) This demonstrates how important it is for women to take part in everything. We never know when something starts affecting our lives in a negative way if we have not had any say in the matter. For this reason: women make noice, take up space!

 

 

The last interesting thing of Mona’s speech I’ll mention is how she said: ”Why is it considered weird, dangerous or revolutionary when we wish for all female anything, but all men is considered normal”. This really got me thinking, because when we talk about having parliament run by women only, it’s considered absurd or ”unequal”, but for hundreds or more like thousands of years our countries, parliaments, literally everything has been run by all male representation. Why is there no time and space in history to try out all female lead everything? Should we not give it a try?

 

Personally I would love to see how the world would look if there were all female run everything and my personal opinion is that the world would look a lot different. I believe women would make work places more healthy and sustainable. I believe women run country would look more equal to all people, including all minorities into decision making and noticing these people exist in the community. Should we find out, if my beliefs are true, well hell yeah we should!

 

Written by: Emilia Parikka

 

REFERENCES:

Bling. M. 2022. Naisten työelämän haasteet ja tulevaisuudenkuvat. Webinaari. 11.03.2022. Viewed 11.03.2022. https://youtu.be/FBetdecNjNI

Hämeen Sanomat. 2016. Suomalaisen naisen itsemääräämisoikeuden historia on lyhyt. Article. Published 17.01.2016. Read 16.03.2022. https://www.hameensanomat.fi/kanta-hame/suomalaisen-naisen-itsemaaraamisoikeuden-historia-on-lyhyt-165154/

Puukka. P. 2021. Naisia on pidetty hysteerisinä, leikattu ilman nukutusta ja pakkoruokittu väkivalloin – kaikki tämä lääketieteen nimissä, kertoo uusi kirja. Article. Updated 20.12.2021. Read 16.03.2022. https://yle.fi/uutiset/3-12231982

 

Comments
  • Luiza de Oliveira Vago

    Emilia, I love your essay. I like how the person you talked about addressed the historical side of the matter, making me reflect on how our rights are actually quite new in this perspective. Historically speaking, facts that happened 100 years ago are just as close as the closest corner. It is crazy to see how we, women (cisgender or transgender), still have to pay for the progress with our own blood. I cant stop thinking as well about how Latin and Black women have their rights denied untill nowadays and how it took us even more time to have access to places, things and rights. This is all so crazy to think about, specially now that I live in a country such as Finland, ruled by women groups. I think this is amazing and at the same time, your essay is a reminder of how much we still have to fight in this life. A little poem from Rupi Kaur named Legacy: “I stand on the sacrifices of a million women before me, thinking what can I do to make this mountain taller so the women after me can see farther”.

    30.3.2022
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