Changing views on gender and security : Finland’s belated opening of military service to women in the 1990s

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article studies the historical shift in societal understandings of gender and security in Finland that led to the introduction of women’s voluntary military service and the opening of the military professions to women in 1995. With a focus on how the gendered division of defence and military labour was conceptualized at various stages, the study analyses what caused Finland to lag behind its Scandinavian neighbours in this respect, and what caused a sweeping reform process to come about in the early 1990s. Drawing on press materials, parliamentary records and policymaking documents, it traces public debates and policymaking over two decades. It shows that women’s defence work was a controversial issue, for both historical and political reasons. This caused an emphasis being placed on women’s non-military tasks within a broad understanding of societal security during the 1980s. Around the end of the Cold War, a surge of neo-patriotism coincided with the normalization of formal gender equality to effect a significant shift in notions of female citizenship towards military participation. Positive Scandinavian examples of women’s military integration were decisive at this point, as was the political impact of Finland acquiring its first female minister of defence.