Outlandish

Women and sport, 2016 edition. This summer has been a real celebration for all sports, so the media coverage has been very large on the subject as well. Recently there has been an increasing amount of talk about whether women’s sport is neglected in a discriminating way in the media and I find this discussion very interesting especially because I do follow all kinds of sports. The moment that inspired me to write this was when I watched a program, where a group  of successful Finnish athletes gather in Florida, hosted by one of world’s best ice-hockey players, Teemu Selänne, to compete in light-minded sport activities and go through their careers one athlete per episode. These athletes were some of the most successful Finns… and all men except for one figure skater, Kiira Korpi. So I wrote this but didn't publish it... until I saw a picture on Facebook: a huge headline screaming how Michael Phelps won silver swimming 200 meters. And a teeny tiny headline somewhere inside...

We are hiring more Finnish people to the office and I’ve been responsible for doing the interviews. My favourite question is “describe yourself with three adjectives” because it totally throws Finns, every time. They go all quiet and their brain is working like crazy to come up with something and usually people say that if I had asked for negatives, it would have been easier for them. At first it made me laugh because it’s such a stereotype but so true as well. But after the third person struggled with this questions  I grew more worried than cheery. It can’t be right that people don’t appreciate themselves enough for three little words. It made me think about self-esteem and what it requires. Especially in today’s media-centric world girls and women are given the impression that they aren’t good enough until they are starving 24/7 or muscly enough to resemble a man, but also in that case they are almost required to have an eating disorder. But not just media, also cult...

International women's day! Still in the 21st century, even though we in Nordic countries don't put much stock on it, it is a very important day, in my opinion. In my several travels I have realized how much work we still have to do even in Europe to reach equality between sexes. In Southern and Eastern European countries women are still too often seen as baby dispensers and as someones whose only purpose in life is to make a man happy. Also in Western countries this can be seen unfortunately much and it's not necessarily a man's fault that a woman is in such a repressed position in a relationship. Eventually we have to take charge of how people around us perceive us and not let them determine that for us. In Finland I have followed how we have slipped backwards worth several decades in just a year or two when it comes to attitudes towards women. Internet has given men an easy and faceless way to attack unknown women who dare to think differently from thems...

Among the horribilities (I just made up a word!) in Paris during the past week it has been absolutely refreshing to notice some little good deeds that people do around us all the time. Like the video  of people rescuing animals from all sorts of places and situations.  Also at work, in accordance to the Christmas spirit, we are trying to contribute to the lives of some people who are less "fortunate" in life. Here in Slovakia poor families and families with disabled children don't get much support from the state. So the big companies that have come here want to do their share and, for example, we have this Tree of Wishes before Christmas every year here at work. Basically it's a Christmas tree standing in the lobby decorated with wishes from children in the institutions or programs that the company is co-operating with. Some lovely people in our team went and picked a wish: a kitchen with crayons and wax to form figures out of, not that much for us to pu...

Lately I've come face to face with the biggest cultural difference, not just between Finland and Slovakia, but between Nordic  (and some Western European)  countries  and the entire rest of the world: equality between men and women. I grew up in a world where my sex didn't determine anything for me or the people around me. I had a lot of boy friends (not boyfriends) already in kindergarten and it could never have occurred to me that I couldn't or shouldn't do something that they did just because I was a girl. In my family I was the only girl child and I was usually the one who did all the crazy things that boys are expected to do like climbing trees, walking first in line to a dark forest and jumping off rocks. As I got older I as a person was never seen as someone whose main function in life is to settle down with a man, not necessarily a man I would like, just some man, and produce children and be content with the fact that that's all my life would ever be. ...