Radical sex role ideology and the Finnish gender role movement in the late 1960s

Abstract

An active discussion of gender roles and the need to renegotiate them took place in the late 1960s in Finland. While previous studies have associated this ‘sex role debate’ with the independent civic organisation Association 9, this article focuses on the wider gender role movement. The article analyses the interplay and differences among the Finnish Women’s Democratic League, the Committee for Women’s Status, and Association 9’s grassroots activism between 1965 and 1970. It demonstrates that similar ideas about sex roles were presented simultaneously in two public spheres: the dominant public, where the ideas were promoted by Association 9, and the people’s democratic counterpublic, which presented the goals of the Finnish Women’s Democratic League. Both discussions also influenced the work of the Committee for Women’s Status in Finland. These organisations had divergent modes of action, ranging from a civic association to party political organisation and parliamentary committee, but the theoretical premises of their conceptualisations of gendered societal structures had clear similarities. We show this by drawing on the archives of Association 9 and the Finnish Women’s Democratic League, including original documents such as minutes of meetings and newspaper and magazine clippings, and the Committee for Women’s Status’s White Paper.