Sanna Marin has come under fire after a video surfaced last week showing her dancing with friends at a private party. In the wake of the leaked video, some political opponents questioned whether her judgment was impaired, leading some to call for her to take a drug test. Marin – who took the test and passed – said she did nothing wrong. “I didn’t have any work meetings scheduled for that weekend,” he said after the video surfaced. “I had work meetings on Monday which of course I handled. But we didn’t have any government meetings during that week, and I had the day off and I spent it with my friends and I didn’t do anything illegal.” The Prime Minister of Finland He has been criticized in the past for attending too many music festivals and spending too much on parties instead of governing. Critics say it is not suitable for a PM. pic.twitter.com/FbOhdTeEGw —@visegrad24 Marin became Finland’s youngest prime minister in 2019, at 34. At the time, the social democrat told reporters she would remain true to herself. It’s not the first time her private life has been the subject of public debate, leading some to say she’s being kept in the dark — while others say a world leader should always be ready to be called upon to make major decisions.

Celebrate – then tear them down

Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante weighed in early on this latest debate, posting an Instagram story the next day featuring Cyndi Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun and the words, “Me, responding to the backlash to the Prime Minister of Finland,” adding one eye. emojis. Montreal Mayor Valérie Plante took to Instagram to show her support for Marin’s dance, seen here in an image taken from her Instagram Stories. (val_plante/Instagram ) “The fact that it became a huge story is absolutely absurd,” said former Liberal cabinet minister Catherine McKenna, who faced sexist attacks during her tenure, including it’s called Climate Barbie by an opposition colleague — an insult that her critics have hurled at her for years. “When you think about all the critical issues we’re going through in the world right now – a climate crisis, a COVID crisis, a security crisis – and that we’re focusing on how someone, a prime minister, but a real person, behaves in her private time because she’s younger woman… then I think we’ve lost the plot.’
McKenna said she did not go out socially for the first two years after she was appointed minister because she felt she was under such scrutiny and pressure. Former Liberal minister Catherine McKenna says female politicians should be able to be themselves and bring their life experience to the table without being targeted. (Giacomo Panico/CBC) Former NDP MP Peggy Nash says people often celebrate the presence of women in public life, but then proceed to tear them down at the first opportunity. There’s a clear double standard when it comes to women in politics — especially young women, said Nash, who wrote a book called Women Winning Office: An Activist’s Guide to Getting Elected. “I think for women — not just in politics, but in any aspect of public life — there’s still this traditional stereotype of who is a leader,” Nash said. “And that’s male, unfortunately.” Male politicians who make mistakes are given more leeway, she said, as they are often seen as not yet “fully formed,” with room for improvement. “Men are held to a level of their potential, while women are held to a very rigid level of accountability now,” she said. “And it doesn’t matter how much they’ve accomplished or what experience they have. They have to be super-perfect or they’re overcriticized. It’s an unfair double standard.” Former NDP MP Peggy Nash, who has written a book on how to get more women into politics, says there’s still a double standard in how women are judged in public. (Richard Lam/The Canadian Press) Conservative strategist Tim Powers, president of Summa Strategies, says that while there could be a double standard, he thinks there’s more to it. “I think there’s a lot of rigidity of view, which diminishes and takes away from what we all say we want authenticity,” he said. “I think there’s more hypocrisy than meets the eye.” He also suggested that there is some ageism involved when it comes to Marin, who is 36 years old. Quebec Liberal leader Dominique Anglade, who has spoken about how women are treated in the provincial National Assemblysaid he wasn’t surprised by the reaction to Marin’s video. “Each level of diversity brings a level of complexity, if you will. So the fact that she’s a woman, the fact that she’s young… it’s two levels of diversity, in an environment where people are older and it’s more male.” Anglade said she was surprised, however, by how quickly comments about Marin’s dancing turned into speculation about drug use. “He’s not doing drugs, he’s dancing,” Anglade said of the video, questioning whether a man in a similar situation would have been asked to take a test. “There was no evidence of anything. … People just thought he might have.” Quebec Liberal leader Dominique Anglade has spoken out herself about the double standards and double standards she has experienced as a female politician. (Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press)

White males are seen as natural leaders

Marin probably had no choice but to take the drug test to silence her critics, said Andrea Reimer, a former Vancouver city councillor. She agreed with Anglade that her male counterparts probably shouldn’t even consider it. “Where Boris Johnson or former President Donald Trump might not have had to deal with these kinds of requests, a young woman in a leadership position doesn’t have as many options,” Reimer said. People see older white men as natural leaders, he suggested, and it takes a lot to change that perspective — but it was different for Marin. “This young woman, who led the country through some very difficult times and a period of dancing … was enough to confirm people’s preconceived notion that she is somehow not capable,” Reimer said. Former Vancouver councilor Andrea Reimer says Marin had no choice but to take the drug test, though she questions whether a male leader would be forced to do the same. (Belle Ancell)

Social expectations

On Wednesday, Marin spoke about the experience, telling a crowd in Lathi, Finland, that she is human and has never missed a single assignment because she took time off. “I want to think people look at the work we do, not what we do in our free time,” he said. Powers, who worked on campaigns for former prime ministers Joe Clark and Stephen Harper, says a good leader must be connected to his own humanity. “You can’t be a good leader if you’re a robot, you’re disconnected, you can’t, you know, understand what everybody else might be doing at that time of night having fun,” he said. . “And what’s the test we always use in Canada? Who would you like to have a beer with?” Summa Strategies president Tim Powers says people don’t want their leaders to be robots. (Cynthia Munster) Jaroslav Baran, who ran the Conservative Party’s communications through three election campaigns, agrees there is probably a double standard for a female leader. If it was a male leader caught on video dancing, he said, “people would probably smile and, you know, move on. Or they’d think it’s cool and move on.” The biggest issue in the debate, he said, is whether a head of government is capable of making an important decision when the need arises. “Certainly, it wouldn’t pass the social tests of expectations that an audience has of their leader if a leader was really impaired and an opportunity arose where they had to make an important decision,” she said, noting that she saw no evidence of that in her video Marin. “What comes into play are national security concerns where, in theory, if someone’s perception or judgment is impaired, then they could theoretically give up state secrets or engage in some sort of activity that could later be used against their”. Jaroslav Baran, managing director of Earnscliffe Strategies, says the public would not want a severely disabled leader making important decisions, but adds he saw no evidence of that in Marin’s video. (Earnscliffe) As for McKenna, she said she’s fine with any politician or leader being criticized for a job they do or a policy decision — but not for having a personal life or having fun with friends. She worries that the kind of criticism Marin is experiencing will backfire, particularly if women start to change their behavior.
“It means you stop wanting to be a real person. It means you don’t bring, you know, what you have that’s so valuable — your experiences — to the table,” he said. “Women have to push back and they have to push hard.”

Canadian politicians defend Finnish prime minister after party video leaked

Finland’s Prime Minister Sanna Marin has come under scrutiny after video leaked of the 36-year-old leader partying with friends over the weekend. Some Canadian politicians have come to her defense, saying the criticism is unfair.