Northern European politics rarely rates a mention in Australian media, but the young prime minister of Finland, Sanna Marin, has been making headlines here for a week. “Finnish PM apologises for topless photo as steamy images emerge” ran Wednesday’s headline in the tabloid Herald Sun.
You’d be forgiven for thinking that the images are of Marin herself, especially given the Herald Sun’s stablemate news.com.au similarly ran with “Finland prime minister Sanna Marin apologises for topless photo” and everyone from Australia’s public broadcasters the ABC and SBS to commercial channel 9 shared the tales of Finland’s “Party PM”.
The “topless images” are not, of course, of the Finnish prime minister – they’re not even particularly “topless”. Those on public view playfully shield the subjects’ breasts with a sign that reads “Finland” – a gesture of on-brand patriotism if ever there was one.
One infers the “steaminess” derives from the depiction of two women kissing, which for those of us who live in liberal, modern western countries like Finland – or Australia – is about as steamy as a Sunday dinner with your parents. For Marin, who was raised by lesbian parents, this is, perhaps, literally the case.
As has been pointed out in solidarity videos made in support of Marin and shared all over the world, women dancing, “grinding” and smooching at parties is ubiquitous enough a western pastime to be considered, frankly, ho-hum.
The issue is not, of course, that Marin does in her spare time what 36-year-old western women somewhere are doing at any given point. It is that a 36-year-old western woman is holding down a position of leadership that ancient prejudices still – still – associate with old men and a different, gendered set of standards.
There are topless photos aplenty of Marin’s Russian neighbour, the 69-year-old Vladimir Putin, whose idea of a party is quoting song lyrics about rape as he invades sovereign nations.
These stories about Marin have appeared at the precise time the young Finn outflanked the old Russian autocrat, asserting both strategic deftness and military preparedness with her government’s request that Finland join the Nato alliance.
In this context, footage of her partying is the opposite of disgrace. Putinist images of unrestrained power rooted in twee, kitsch stereotypes of masculine dominance are brutally undercut by a prime minister who can both party on with the girls and stare down militarism to her east at the same time.
They’re visible proof of the political strength of western liberalism – that destroying prejudicial barriers to power is what brings your best to the front.
So why has there been some tutt-tutting in the media and online?
Other commentators have made the point that those who are attracted to Marin as a physical object may be distressed and resentful that her position as prime minister affirms her power as a subjective individual. She’s a symbol of the feminist achievement that recidivist and resentful closet cultural-Putinists in the west fight – with everything from internet harassment to anti-abortion laws – to contain.
Power as western tradition understands it indulges the older white men who wield it their proclivities – sexual, chemical or otherwise. Their personal lives are their footnotes, not their story.
Note that Australia’s new prime minister, Anthony Albanese, 59, received a celebratory reception for his own big night out on Monday. The infamously rock-loving “DJ Albo” was cheered by crowds at a Gang of Youths concert, skolling beer, wearing a Joy Division T-shirt.
No one obliged him to take a drug test, like Marin. Indeed, the event represented a humanising movement of what we understand as power coming to where the people are. What Marin represents is the people coming to where the power is, and the shaming of her for it is revealing.
For far too many of media and cultural influence in the west, it is one thing for a woman to hold office … but the democratisation of also having a good time is, as yet, unendurable.
Van Badham is a Guardian Australia columnist
