In a column for Lapin Kansa, Saaga Vanhamäki argues that Finnish conscripts still too often fail to show basic respect toward women who volunteer for military service. She frames the issue against Finland’s security situation, shrinking conscript age cohorts, and rising service interruptions, arguing that women’s willingness to serve should carry more weight, not less, in national defence.

The piece responds in part to recent reporting by Yle, after four conscripts were fined for spreading AI-generated fake nude images of four female service members in a social media group of more than 30 men. Vanhamäki connects that case to older barracks cultures of anonymous sexualized “joke” lists, rape fantasies, and bystander silence, arguing that misogyny, whether excused as humour or peer pressure, drives motivated women away from the reserve and weakens defence readiness.

In the barracks, there has been a custom of making lists about conscript leaders, where subordinates write anonymous comments, often supposedly as humour. Officially, the Defence Forces have rules against this. But during my own service in 1996, the habit was still widespread. Lists about female leaders regularly included crude sexual comments and rape jokes.

Read the entire piece in Lapin Kansa.