In 2019, at the age of 34, Sanna Marin became the youngest head of government in the world. She led Finland through the pandemic and navigated the growing threat from Russia – and as a result, Finland’s historic path towards NATO membership.
Despite this, it was her gender and age that received the most attention, she writes in her autobiography “Toivo on tekoja.” All five party leaders in her coalition government were women – four of them under 35. All were subjected to an “endless stream of primarily sexually charged digital threats,” according to the book.
"I have been threatened with rape and other types of sexual assault so many times that I have lost count," Marin writes.
The competence and leadership of the female government were constantly questioned, she says. The leaders' behavior was "moralized in a way that resembles the time when women were not allowed to go to a restaurant without male company," according to Marin.
In 2022, leaked private videos showed the then-prime minister dancing and partying with friends, sparking a storm of rumors that eventually led Marin to take a drug test to disprove all the speculation.
“We soon realized that my true political crime was that I did not behave and look like a prime minister was expected to do,” she writes in the memoir.
Sanna Marin was Prime Minister of Finland 2019–2023. "Toivo on tekoja" will be published later this week also in Swedish, under the title "With courage to lead".
