Star Metro - Finnish ex-PM Marin says her female cabinet faced torrent of sexism

Marin became the world's youngest elected head of government in 2019 at the age of 34, running a centre-left coalition with five women party leaders, four under the age of 35.

In her book "Hope in Action: A Memoir About the Courage to Lead" ("Toivo on tekoja" in Finnish), she describes her personal experiences of navigating Finland through the Covid-19 pandemic which hit soon after she took office and how she led the country's historic NATO membership application process.

AFP has read the Finnish version of the book and translated the quotes from that edition.

Marin went from relative unknown in Finland to one of the most recognised leaders around the world, dubbed a "rock star prime minister" by the media.

She discusses how her gender and age played into the treatment by the media and the public, highlighting for example, the misogynistic online harassment her government experienced at first hand.

The Finnish female party leaders were "subjected to a never-ending stream of mainly sexually charged online threats", Marin writes in Finnish.

"I have been threatened with rape and other forms of sexual assault so many times that I have lost count," she says.

- Out-dated moralising -

The coalition leaders were dismissively nicknamed the "lipstick government" and the "girl government".

"Our competence and leadership skills were constantly questioned without any attempt to justify the allegations," Marin adds.

She says her government's "behaviour was moralised in a way that is more reminiscent of a time when women were not allowed to go to restaurants without a male escort than of today's society".

Although a hugely popular leader, Marin was entangled in media storms relating to her private life, polarising her reputation.

In August 2022, leaked social media videos showing Marin partying with a group of Finnish celebrities made news around the world, prompting her to take a drug test to clear suspicions of wrongdoing.

When people ask her if she would have acted differently knowing beforehand of the stir the partying would set off, Marin writes she always finds the question astonishing and responds in the same way: "What kind of life would that be?"

"We soon realised that my real political crime was that I did not behave and look the way a prime minister was expected to," she says in her memoir.

"I was too informal, too relaxed and I danced in a way that was considered indecent. I spent my time at house parties with young people instead of sitting at a formal eight-course dinner sipping carefully selected wines."

Soon after Marin's Social Democrats lost elections in April 2023 she announced her exit from politics, appointed a strategic counsellor at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

A.Desjardins--SMC