Happy International Womens' Day to all Women (Including Cis Women)!

Luettavissa myös suomeksi.

Over the last few decades, gender equality has taken many great dtrides forward. Women have made it into the highest offices of more and more countries and businesses, and the societal image of many professions now leaves room for the possibility that the person in question might be a woman.

However, all is not well.

In Finland as elsewhere in the world, diseases primarily affecting the womb, ovaries, and other parts of the reproductive system typical to people assigned female at birth are still unacceptably understudied, and patients suffering from them must often wait years to access appropriate care. Otherwise competent nurses have not always even heard of very common conditions, such as endometriosis. Pain experienced by women and people perceived as women is not taken seriously in medical contexts, and many procedures may be performed without any anaesthetic, even though nobody would even consider this when performing an equivalent procedure on a different part of the body.

Violence against women also remains a major point of societal injustice, causing many women to not feel safe even in their own homes, let along on the street. Finland, despite its often-lauded gender equality, is not an exception in this regard — on the contrary, according to official statistics it is classified as one of Europe's most violent countries for women. Many Finnish women get roses on International Women's Day, but on other days get hit.

At the same time, numerous women are denied the right to live their own lives as the women they are, because the law and reactionary attitudes in society make it difficult for a woman classified as the wrong gender at birth to access all dimensions of womanhood. Transphobia, bureaucracy and attempts by a patriarchial society to "protect" trans women from themselves make all aspects of transitioning unnecessarily difficult, and we are still far away from that long dreamt of future when trans women will enjoy complete societal equality.

While I do not consider myself a trans woman, I have many unmistakable transfeminine traits, and in many ways I consider my own gender to be close to the traditional female than the traditional male. So-called "women's issues" do not always intersect exactly with those issues that directly affect my life, but I have nevertheless gotten to see many of these phenomena up close.

Today I participated in the Smash the Patriarchy -marssi International Women's Day march held in Turku. In the inersectional spirit of the event, I wrote on my and my partner's sign Greenland belongs to Greenlanders in Greenlandic (Kalaallit Nunaat kalaallit pigaat), the now generally familiar Слава Україні, and the eternal Fuck Trump.