Gendered labor markets

The informants present often examples of women working in high political positions in both countries. Therefore, segregation is merely horizontal than vertical in examples. Horizontal segregation refers to a situation when there are more women or men in different occupations, whereas vertical means that women and men are concentrated in different levels of hierarchy

within an organization. (European Institute for Gender Equality, 2020.) In the fourth interview, the expert mentions Namibia’s ‘zebra’ politics, which means gender-equality quota of the parliament (International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, 2020). This person also presents an interpretation of what Namibians might think about the Finnish government: it appears to include a lot of women.

Of course, it was emphasized at the time when this zebra government came. And so I was about to say, how does it appear in the work between Finland and Namibia, probably in Namibia about Finnish public administration, and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, they have the idea that in Finland, roughly everyone in the Ministry for Foreign Affairs is women. Because it has usually been there for a long time, that the Embassy staff have been mostly women, and then a lot of these visitors from Finland who have usually gone there, have been women there. So, in a way, Finland has set such a good example, but perhaps there is a female majority in public positions in Finland anyway. At that point in Finland, equality may not be fully realized in the other direction.

Et tietysti korostuu myös niihin aikoihin kun tuli tää seepra-hallitus. Ja niin sitä mun piti sanoa, et millä tavalla se näkyy Suomen ja Namibian välisessä työssä, niin varmaan Namibiassa kun suomalaisesta julkisesta hallinnosta, ja ulkoministeriöstä on se ajatus, et Suomessa kaikki ulkoministeriössä työssä olevat on suurin piirtein naisia. Koska yleensä se on ollut siellä pitkään, et suurlähetystön henkilökunta on ollut pääasiassa naisia, plus sitten paljon näitä vierailijoita Suomesta ketä siellä on yleensä käynyt, on ollut yleensä naisia siellä.

Että tavallaan siinä mielessä Suomi on antanut niinkun hyvää esimerkkiä siitä, mutta ehkä julkisissa viroissa Suomessa muutenkin on sitten niinkun naisenemmistöä. Siinä kohtaa Suomesta ei välttämättä toiseen suuntaan sit toteudu se tasa-arvo ihan täysin.

(Interview 4)

As mentioned earlier regarding country promotion, women in high positions in Finland are sometimes explained by the advantages of a welfare model. The fourth expert presents that in Namibia, there were mostly women as high political representatives of Finland. According to the informant, they gave a good example to Namibians in that. In this interview, Nordic countries are presented as pioneers of equality. Jauhola (2012, pp.315-318) questions Finland’s right to “bring” equality to other countries due to existing inequalities also in Finland.

The seventh informant recognizes inequalities in Finnish society and emphasizes that the glass ceiling is about to break down; equality is progressing but not yet ready. European

Institute for Gender Equality (2020) defines a glass ceiling as invisible barriers that hinder women’s access to top decision making and managerial positions. According to this person it can be seen from growing numbers of women working in international diplomacy in Finland for instance. Therefore, Finnish representatives in Namibia were often women as the fourth informant presents. An interviewee in the fifth interview draws back to history and presents an example of Finnish equality, that Finnish missionaries who worked as teachers and nurses in Namibia were mostly women. According to this person, Namibians adopted the model of a female teacher. All in all, Finland gave an example of fostering equality for Namibians in this example. The first, fourth and second informants signify inequalities in Finland and state examples from working life. The fourth interviewee criticizes the image of Finland as a pioneering country of equality and describes the fact that women are paid less than men for the same work.

The first informant states as fact that working fields in Finland are segregated to women’s and men’s jobs: nursing and health care is an example of women’s work. The expert ponders that low salary might be a reason for to low interest of men towards health care. According to the second informant, salaries are often lower in fields dominated by women, such as early childhood education. Although this person presents that it is still the individual’s own choice not to work on a field which is low paid. Nevertheless, in other parts of the interview, this person signifies a high level of equality due to the high number of Finnish women in politics for instance

Based on findings on gender equality barometer surveys in 2008, 2012, and 2017, Kauhanen and Riukula (2019, p.83) suggest that more women are working in the public sector, while the private sector is male-dominated. When experts speak of gender regarding labor in Finland and Namibia, women are left out from the high-private sector positions. The seventh interviewee expresses that nowadays there are more women in business in Finland but points technical fields and men’s dominance in engineering.

…engineers, that are these particular fields and sectors, they likely are mostly men, or majority there are men. So it starts already from higher education.

….insinöörit, jotka on näitä tietyn tyyppisiä alueita ja sektoreita, niin ne on varmaan pääasiallisesti miehiä, tai siellä on enemmistö miehiä. Et se lähtee jo sieltä korkeakoulu opetuksesta.

(Interview 7).

Expert in the seventh interview suggests that division to differentiated fields of men and women starts already from educational level. Namibian context this person determines by highlighting women’s high representativeness in politics. According to the expert, this situation might be a consequence of women’s strong role in the Namibian war for independence. Jauch and Tjirera (2016, p.102) state that the Namibian government created policies and programs to support equality after independence in 1990.

The fourth informant perceives that in a new partnership of Finland and Namibia which emphasizes trade and business, equality and women’s position is not the main concern when companies want to make a profit. On the other hand, women’s role in business and the good reputation of a firm have been in discussions when Finnish companies are tempted to go to Namibia. The fourth interviewee compares the public and private sectors in Finland;

according to the expert, there are fewer women in tasks of high responsibility in the private sector than in the public sector. This person sees Namibian and Finnish work markets similar in this sense.

In the interviews, the informants speak about how they can carry themselves as experts and are accepted in Namibia regarding their gender. Within discussion on work-life, they position themselves, which means that they reflect their subjectivity to social and cultural thoughts and expectations regarding ethnicity, gender, and class, for instance (Andermahr, Lovell and Wolkowitz, 1997, p.203). To guarantee the informants’ anonymity, their genders should not be revealed. Nevertheless, this text includes some pondering on the self-positioning of the informants. The experts position themselves through similarity of gender.

They do not recognize the impact of gender and sex in their position. (Kuusipalo, 2002, pp.212-213.)

In everyday work with Namibians and Finnish the fourth interviewee did not recognize the role of gender. On the other hand, this person took note that the behavior of international diplomats, who were mostly men, changed if there were women as diplomats joining the meetings. The seventh informant looks back and describes how s/he used to say before, that gender and sex were never either a benefit or disadvantage on the career. This person contradicts the old saying and presents that discussion within the work community on

uncomfortable gender-related experiences started during the #meetoo movement when sexual harassment in the workplace gained more attention globally in 2017 (Khomami, 2017).

According to the interviewees, Namibia is a country where everyone is always accepted as professionals regardless of their sex. Interpretation of the informants includes an idea of gender as similarity, which was part of the liberal feminists’ movement when they introduce the concept of equality (Kuusipalo, 2002, pp.211-213). The informant in the third interview presents that belonging to the group was not related to gender:

In a way oh, that respect and that attention, it was nothing to do with gender and age or skin color, but it was related to being one of them and you could join the team. And I think this has been in Namibia all the time.

Et tavallaan se tota se kunnioitus ja se huomio, se ei liittynyt mitenkään sukupuoleen ja ikään, eikä ihonväriin, vaan se liitty tosiaan siihen, että sä olit niinkun yksi heistä ja sä pääsit tiimiin mukaan. Ja mun mielestä tää on ollu Namibiassa koko ajan.

(Interview 3)

The third interviewee does not consider that being a woman or a man, age, or ethnic background affected respect and attention that a professional would enjoy in a work community in Namibia. According to the informant, belonging into the group depends on something else, that was defined by Namibian who approved this person to be part of the community. As Kupiainen (2019, p.153) suggests, while diminishing the meaning of gender and sex, one might reconstruct common significances related to gender: women’s expertise is not recognized within a strong male normativity. Therefore, when the third informant tells that it was necessary just to “belong to the group”, instead of having the advantage or disadvantage of gender, this person supports the male norm of expertise.