News, 16.3.2007

At first there were 19 women Members of Parliament and Liisi Karttunen

Unders-Secretary of State Marjatta Rasi welcomed the guests to the women´s history celebration. Under-Secretary of State Marjatta Rasi welcomed the guests to a women’s history celebration, “100 years of Women’s Suffrage” arranged on Thursday, 15 March by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The date marked the 100th anniversary to the day when La Dottoressa Liisi Karttunen first cast her vote and boarded a boat headed for Rome later the same day. In Rome she was later a journalist and legendary clerk for cultural affairs at the Finnish Embassy.

Posts as representatives at foreign missions opened to women only in 1965. The share of women in the foreign service has been increasing since 1984; today about 45 per cent of diplomats and 63 per cent of all personnel in the foreign service are women. The number of women in managerial positions has also risen, and now every other director general is a woman. Women make up about one in four ambassadors; this figure is also rising. The number of women in positions of leadership is higher in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs than in any other Finnish ministry.

Minna Canth (left) and Alexandra Gripenberg were feminist writers, and Tyyne Leivo-Larsson was the first female ambassador. A century ago Finnish women elected 19 women to represent the people at the Finnish Parliament – the first women in the world to do so. In the Parliament now ending its term, women representatives constituted 38 per cent of the Members of Parliament.

The role of women in international affairs is naturally broader than their history as civil servants and extends to many sectors of life, from citizens’ organisations and interest group associations to science and the arts.

Elise Garritzen is writing her doctoral dissertation on Liisi Karttunen. The women in positions of leadership at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs –– Under-Secretary of State Marjatta Rasi, Director General Ulla Väistö of the Department for Administrative Affairs, Director General Irma Ertman of the Legal Department and Director General Elina Kalkku of the Department for the Americas and Asia –– hosted the joint celebration in honour of the historic women who have worked in the foreign service and in other capacities involving international relations. Also present were women diplomats from the foreign missions of other countries, and based in Helsinki, as well as representatives of citizens’ organizations. Elise Garritzen, who is writing her doctoral dissertation on Liisi Karttunen, gave a talk about this historic woman.