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Newsletter 32

News from National Committees

FINLAND

The position of female historians and feminist historians was widely discussed in Finland last spring. The Finnish Historical Society organised a panel in which several female and male historians addressed the question of women's career opportunities in the Finnish universities. The discussion was started by feminist historians Marjo Kaartinen and Anu Korhonen who argued that still today there is a gender bias among historians. History departments tend to support and hire men rather than women and historical journals prefer to publish articles written by men. Despite the growing number of women among graduate students and Ph.Ds, men seem to have better career opportunities. Historians seem to be particularly conservative in their attitudes. Someone even suggested that women should choose to study "more relevant" themes if they want to become noticed and respected among their colleagues. This discussion was a useful reminder of the fact that gender bias is by no means a solved question among historians.

During the last years more material on women's studies and gender studies has been published in the internet. There are good websites in English for those who wish to read more about women and gender in Finland. A good page to start with is: http://www.helsinki.fi/akka-info/english.html

One of the most interesting pages you can find there is Finnish Maiden. It is a collection of Finnish women's links. Gender historians have also started a relatively new discussion list naishistoria@utu.fi (in Finnish).

-compiled by Pirjo Markkola
(pirjo.markkola @uta.fi)