A Finnish socialist female parliamentarian stopped on the Dutch border : The (de)politicization of Finnish women’s suffrage in Dutch battles on votes for women
Abstract
A Finnish socialist female parliamentarian stopped on the Dutch border: the (de) politicization of Finnish women’s suffrage in Dutch battles on votes for women This research article in transnational history analyses an incident during which Hilja Pärssinen, a Finnish socialist woman MP, was stopped on the Dutch border in September 1913 on her way to visit a suffragette college in London. This two-hour event at the border and public controversy that followed were clashes between competing ideological and gendered discourses on women’s political agency. The incident was a nexus of intersecting discourses on a range of issues: Dutch and international debates on women’s suffrage, discourse on ‘white slavery’, racial prejudices towards East Europeans, Marxist class struggle discourse, and fears of socialism. During the incident, the authorities seemed to be casting the identity of an illegal immigrant or a Russian prostitute on Pärssinen. Provoked against her psycho-physical experiences, she protested by performing that identity. Afterwards, transnationally connected socialists politicized the case in their fight for women’s political rights, while the authorities and the non-socialist press consistently depoliticized it.
Main Author
Format
Articles
Research article
Published
2020
Series
Subjects
Publication in research information system
Publisher
Amsterdam University Press
The permanent address of the publication
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:jyu-202004272912Use this for linking
Review status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0040-7518
DOI
https://doi.org/10.5117/TVGESCH2020.1.004.IHAL
Language
English
Published in
Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis
Citation
- Ihalainen, P. (2020). A Finnish socialist female parliamentarian stopped on the Dutch border : The (de)politicization of Finnish women’s suffrage in Dutch battles on votes for women. Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 133(1), 53-75. https://doi.org/10.5117/TVGESCH2020.1.004.IHAL
Copyright© Author and Amsterdam University Press, 2020