WOMEN AND THE VOTE IN FINLAND

As President Tarja Halonen said clearly in her New Year speech Finns should feel good that Finland was the first European country to give women the vote and to have a one person one vote system. This was in 1906 meaning now a 100 year tradition. You may read the speech for yourself by clicking in to my linked pages from Juha.
However it must be said that women in Finland today still wait for equal pay for equal jobs. It is a crying shame that women still and often get paid up to 25% less than the men for doing a job of work that is considered to be equal.
But 100 years ago Finland had the most up to date political democracy in Europe and this included the secret ballot, proportional representation where the franchise was universal.
Did we hear not so long ago that the UK led the field in democracy?