WHERE WOMEN VOTE 



491 



In the elections for the second Diet, 

 which took place in July, the women 

 voters outnumbered the men by more 

 than 4,000 in Helsingfors, and by about 

 3,000 in the province of Nyland. This 

 time 26 women members were elected. 

 Of the 224 petitions presented to the sec- 

 ond Diet, 29 were presented by women, 

 and of these one was for the ap])ointment 

 of a woman sanitary inspector, one for 

 the improvement in the position of women 

 in state service, two for the extension of 

 certain railways, and several for abolish- 

 ing legal abuses under which women had 

 been suffering. Nearly all the rest con- 

 cerned various improvements in the care 

 and education of children. 



IJALANCli OP POWER AMONG PARTIES NOT 

 AFFECTED BY WOMEN 



At the time of the second elections the 

 women again joined the already existing 

 political parties and made no attempt to 

 establish a separate party of their own. 

 Once more also the number of women 

 representatives in each party proved to 

 be in direct proportion to the number of 

 men representatives of the respective 

 party. In other words, the election of 

 women members did not in any way af- 

 fect the balance of power among the 

 parties. This was also true of the third 

 Diet, elected in May, 1909. 



The personnel of the women members 

 in the three Diets has been in the main 

 the same. Among those elected to the 

 third Diet were one factory inspector, 

 one principal of a teachers' seminary, 

 two doctors of philosophy (one of them 

 an official in the state bureau of statis- 

 tics), one principal of a girls' school, one 

 historical writer and lecturer on political 

 questions, one clergyman's widow, one 

 peasant's wife, one girls' school teacher, 

 one public-school teacher, five seam- 

 stresses, one editor of a Social Demo- 

 cratic women's weekly (a former servant 

 girl), one hooper's wife, one crofter's 

 daughter, two Social Democratic organ- 

 izers, one without specified profession. 

 Thus, as among the men, all classes of 

 women are represented. 



As the majority of the representatives 



are over 40 years of age, it is safe to 

 assume that in almost all cases their chil- 

 dren, if they have children, are of school 

 age, or at least old enough not to suffer 

 from their mother's temporary absence 

 from home ; and, moreover, in all but 

 four or five cases, the women members 

 of Parliament were previously engaged 

 in wage-earning occupations which were 

 more confining and less well paid than 

 their present positions. In other words, 

 the families of the great majority of 

 women members of Parliament have 

 gained socially and economically by their 

 election to Parliament. It is perhaps in- 

 teresting to note that there are three 

 cases of married couples representing a 

 constituency. 



As regards the work of women mem- 

 bers of the Diet, it is precisely the same 

 as that of the men members, there being 

 women representatives in all of the vari- 

 ous committees. One woman, for ex- 

 ample, is a member of four different 

 committees — the committee which deals 

 with questions of constitutional law, that 

 which prepares bills concerning social 

 and labor questions, that which presents 

 the final parliamentary reports to the 

 state, and the Grand Committee. 



THE ABIEITY TO VOTE HAS IMPROVED THE 

 CONDITION OF Vv^OMEN 



Before the suffrage was granted to 

 women the vast majority of requests 

 made by them for the investigation of 

 the conditions of life among women 

 workers — for example, women factory- 

 workers — were treated with polite indif- 

 ference ; now that women have the vote, 

 all of their official requests receive seri- 

 ous consideration. Two women factory 

 inspectors have been appointed, and a 

 special appropriation has been made for 

 the work of an investigating committee. 



No one who followed the heated de- 

 bates aroused by the bills concerning the 

 "Married Woman's Propertv Act," the 

 "Extension of the Mothers' Rights over 

 their Children," and the "Abolition of 

 the Husband's Guardianship over his 

 Wife," can doubt the practical advantage 

 that women have gained by having 



