Finland’s 36-year-old female Prime Minister, Sanna Marin, heads a governing coalition of five political parties – all led by women and almost all aged in their 30s. It is a nation largely run by women.

This is the culmination of a national push for gender equity that started even before Finland’s independence in 1917.

In 1906, Finland, then a duchy of Russia, was the first country to give women full political rights to both vote and run for office. A year later, the 19 women elected to the Finnish parliament were the first female parliamentarians in the world.

Today, roughly half of the nation’s legislative and ministerial positions are held by women.

Indeed, Finland has much to be proud of this International Women’s Day, ranking second in last year’s World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap report, just behind fellow Nordic country Iceland.

In the same report meanwhile, our own birth nations of the United States and Japan held the positions of No. 30 and No. 120 […]