Comment Women are taking to social media to show support for Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin — and remind the world that politicians are human too. Political rivals berated Marin, 36, last week after videos emerged of the Finnish leader partying with friends at a private event. They called her decision to party during the country’s economic crisis unprofessional and irresponsible. Some critics also suggested that Marin was abusing substances and demanded that she take a drug test to prove otherwise. (The prime minister agreed to a drug test, which came back negative, BBC News reported.) Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin responded on August 18 to the criticism she faced after private videos were leaked showing her at a party with friends. (Video: Reuters) The video of the Finnish prime minister’s party is causing outrage — and applause However, many women rushed to the dance floor and posted videos on social media with the hashtag #SolidarityWithSanna to call out what they see as Marin’s unfair, sexist treatment. They argue that the criticism she has faced has been unwarranted because she is a young woman in a field dominated by older men. And the clips have been viewed more than 100,000 times on TikTok alone. When Rikke Dal Stottrup and her staff at the popular Danish women’s magazine Alt for Damerne heard the news, they had a sense of deja vu. They recalled that tall, blonde Helle Thorning-Schmidt — Denmark’s prime minister from 2011 to 2015 — was constantly scrutinized for what she wore while in office. “It seems that some people even today have a hard time grasping the fact that you can be a young woman … and an able politician at the same time,” Stottrup said. Amid last week’s controversy, workers at Alt for Damerne, which translates to “All for the Ladies,” searched their devices for their own dance clips. They then posted the videos on the magazine’s official account, with the caption that translates to “In solidarity with Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin… we at the Alt for Damerne editorial office emptied the camera roll for clips that never… should have seen the light of day.” “We wanted to highlight the fact that you can be a great prime minister, chief executive, editor, nurse – insert job title – and still hit the track on the weekends,” Stottrup said. “If we want to have more diversity … we need to broaden our view of what a politician might look like. We have to accept the whole package and not just what we have historically been used to.” Melani McAlister, a professor of American studies and international relations at George Washington University, said the backlash against Marin reminded her of how Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (DN.Y.) was criticized in 2019 when a video of her college prom resurfaced . . (Ocasio-Cortez responded with a new video of herself dancing in front of her office.) “Someone thought this could become an issue, even though it’s clearly a tempest in a teapot,” McAlister said of Ocasio-Cortez’s viral clip. “The fact that she’s a woman, the fact that she’s young, and … the fact that she’s a minority make it necessary for her to be standing in order to deserve or appear to deserve the position of power.” McAlister said that although critics demand higher standards from young women and others who do Underrepresented in politics, Marin’s party is not unusual and is socially comparable to how older male politicians play golf. As more young adults take government jobs, he said, voters will have to adjust to what the age group is doing outside of work. “As much as [Marin] she manages to keep calling it for what it is, then good for her,” McAlister said. “It’s not letting it get more traction than it should.” Vitriol from Marin’s Finnish opponents may seem at odds with the Nordic country’s reputation, which is often considered one of the leading industrial nations for gender equality, said Eiko Strader, a GWU sociologist and assistant professor. But country rankings don’t tell the whole story. “Finland seems to be doing much better than other countries, but if you look at labor market indicators such as earnings and managerial representation, Finnish women still lag behind Finnish men because social and cultural norms that cannot be captured through standardized measures shape our daily lives,” Strader said in an email. Stottrup said that although sexist Attacks on women politicians are likely to continue around the world, supporters will continue to unite. As she put it: “We probably still have a few decades to go before we see another case like this, but the Sanna Marins of the world should know we’re right behind them. Dance.”
