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Great Events from History: Women’s History

Finland Elects Its First Female Members of Parliament

by Salem Press

The nation of Finland has the distinction of being one of the first countries in the world to grant full political rights to women; it elected the first female members of parliament on March 15, 1907.

Date: March 15, 1907

Locale: Finland

KEY FIGURES

Miina Sillanpää

Elisabeth Rehn

Anneli Jäätteenmäki

Mari Kiviniemi

Sanna Marin

BACKGROUND

The Russian Empire acquired the Grand Duchy of Finland during the Napoleonic Wars, and in 1809 Czar Alexander I, one of the most conservative and antidemocratic czars in Russian history, officially incorporated Finland into the Empire. During that period there was a legislative assembly (the Landstag or state Diet), in Finland, but it met infrequently, had limited powers, and was made up of only a few men from the upper echelons of society.

Despite that, women were becoming increasingly intent upon asserting their rights. By the 1880s, women’s organizations were being formed, and in 1878, women were granted equal inheritance rights to property. In 1886, the country’s first coeducational school was founded, with women admitted under special authorization. By 1901 women had won the right to study freely at Finnish universities.

Once Russia was defeated in the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, dissatisfaction with the tsarist regime boiled over, and in October of that year a general strike was mounted. To quell dissent, Russia announced that Finland could establish a legislative body, which came to be called the Eduskunta, based on universal suffrage, with the right to vote and run for office, which could be exercised by any Finnish man or woman over the age of twenty-five—regardless of gender, class, or wealth. The country thus became the first in the world to allow women to run for office, and the number of people entitled to vote increased by a factor of ten. The Diet convened to approve the reforms on June 1, 1906, and elections were ordered to be held in the spring of the following year.

The announcement caused some upheaval, and months of preparation ensued, since most Finnish political groups then took the form of debating or discussion societies rather than organized parties capable of setting up polling stations and nominating candidates. Women, as well, had to be informed about their new opportunities and obligations to vote—a process that required many to walk or ski to the nearest village to cast their ballot.

SUMMARY OF EVENT

The elections of March 1907 went smoothly, with 70 percent of the country’s largely literate population showing up at the polls. Of a total of sixty-two female candidates vying for the 200 parliamentary seats, nineteen were elected, making for a legislative body comprising almost 10 percent women, most of them representing the new Social Democratic Party.

After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Finland achieved independence, and on July 17, 1919, it adopted a constitution that provided for a democratic form of government and the continuation of the Eduskunta.

Finland got its first female minister, Miina Sillanpää, who became Second Minister of Social Affairs, in 1926, and after World War II, the number of women elected began to grow readily steadily, picking up steam in the 1970s. By the 1990s almost 40 percent of the members, elected for four-year terms, were women.

HOW PARLIAMENT FUNCTIONS

Parliament still functions largely as it did more than a century ago, enacting law, approving international actions, and negotiating state budgets. It continues to contain 200 seats, and parliamentary elections affecting all 200 seats are held every four years. (The president acts as head of state and is elected every six years.) Members of Parliament (MPs) are elected from each electoral district in proportion to the population, with roughly one MP for every 26,000 people.

Finnish parties now include the Social Democratic Party, the Finns Party, the National Coalition Party, the Centre Party, the Greens, the Left Alliance, and the Christian Democrats, among others, and the country generally has a coalition government. usually headed by the leader of the largest parliamentary party, who serves as prime minister.

The Finnish Parliament is known as a staid, dignified body, where provocative speeches, emotional outbursts, or shouting are strongly frowned upon.

SIGNIFICANCE

Because of women’s presence in upper levels of government, Finland has been as the vanguard of many equity-focused initiatives. In 1980, the country launched the first government-sanctioned gender-equality program, and in 1987, the Act on Equality Between Men and Women, which prohibits discrimination on the grounds of gender, went into effect. In 1990, a Finnish woman, Elisabeth Rehn, became the first Minister of Defence in the world, and in 2006, a woman became head of the Finnish Supreme Court.

Finland got its first woman president, Tarja Halonen, in 2000, and three years later, Anneli Jäätteenmäki became the country’s first woman prime minister. (Mari Kiviniemi was second, in 2010.) In 2019, another woman, Sanna Marin, began serving as prime minister; at the time of her election, she was the youngest PM in the world, at age thirty-four. Her coalition government included five women in top spots, four of whom were also under thirty-five.

As of 2021, women made up 47 percent of Finland’s parliament, placing it near the head of international gender-equality rankings. Only five other countries had a higher percentage of women leaders—Rwanda, Cuba, Bolivia, Mexico, and Sweden—but unlike some of those places, Finland has no statutory gender quotas in place.

Citation Types

Type

Format

MLA 9th

Press, Salem . "Finland Elects Its First Female Members Of Parliament." Great Events from History: Women’s History, edited by Michael J. O’Neal, Salem Press, 2022. Salem Online, online.salempress.com/articleDetails.do?articleName=GEWomen_0140.

APA 7th

Press, S. (2022). Finland Elects Its First Female Members of Parliament. In M. J. O’Neal (Ed.), Great Events from History: Women’s History. Salem Press. online.salempress.com.

CMOS 17th

Press, Salem. "Finland Elects Its First Female Members Of Parliament." Edited by Michael J. O’Neal. Great Events from History: Women’s History. Hackensack: Salem Press, 2022. Accessed December 14, 2025. online.salempress.com.

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