Maria, Helsinki, Finland
Sportive, pesäpallo-player (Finnish baseball). Smart and funny, friendly, excellent company. The best in everyday life are dinner discussions with her family, she dreams about playing saxophone and she admits hating cooking! Brave. Not afraid of challenges and change.
Today she works as Adviser on Gender Equality at Solidarity Foundation in Finland. Dedicated, commendable, acting for improving world piece by piece by working against female genital mutilation. But she has come a long way to get there. In finding her own way she changed her career for 3 times.
If it is not for you, don’t settle! If you are hesitating of making radical career turns, get inspired by Maria’s story!
STORY
“I hope my story serves as an inspiration to anyone who considers making radical career turns.
In 2001, after hardly a year of working as a strategy consultant at an international business consulting company – my imagined dream job during the years at the School of Economics – I had to admit to myself that the 4-year investment in business studies had gone in vein. I didn’t fit in to business sphere at all and started feeling very disturbed about helping clients increase their profits, regardless of the ethics and sustainability of their revenue generation model. So, despite the amazement and even disapproval of my friends and family members, at 23, I resigned and decided to reinvent myself.
While planning for my future, I took a temporarily post as a primary school teacher – my dream job at youth. As that didn’t turn out to be my future career either, I decided to study another master’s degree in social science, this time in Sweden, where my back then new boyfriend, now husband since 2004, lived. Around my graduation in 2005, we decided to settle, have children and move back to Finland to our hometown Pori. That was supposed to be a few years waypoint but came to last 12 years. During those years, our two sons were born, I moved from one not-so-satisfying job to another and compensated that by engaging in several civil society organizations, local politics, writing columns in the local newspaper etc.
Finally, in 2013 after applying tens of jobs at development cooperation sector, I decided to start formalizing the knowledge I had gained in a phenomenon that interested me hugely, female genital mutilation (FGM). I got a post-graduate position at Helsinki University in January 2014, and in 6 years – alongside family, paid work and civil society engagements – I defended my thesis in December 2019. Even better, already in January 2017, I was recruited in my current position where I can utilize my knowledge on FGM and give my contribution to end the practice!”
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Meet Maria, between friends called “Maippi”, born and lived in Ulvila and Pori (Finland) until 1996, via Tampere, Helsinki, Gävle and Böllnäs back to Pori in 2005, and to Helsinki in 2017.
Maippi’s sportive family consists of husband Janne (married since 2004), sons Iiro (2006) and Arttu (2008), and she is close to her childhood family with mother (she lost her father in 2002) and younger sister Leena.
Maippi’s childhood friend Miia is also Mirka’s friend - Maria and Mirka are both godmothers of Miia’s son.
Today Maippi works as Adviser on Gender Equality at International Solidarity Foundation.
Read more about work against FGM at www. solidaarisuus.fi (also in English)
EVERYDAY LIFE
Maippi’s ordinary Tuesday starts with a 5 km’s bike ride to the office, working 7-8 hours consisting mostly of reading, commenting and writing project documents, participating live and remote meetings. After work back home, preparing dinner, reading a newspaper, exercising 2-3 times a week, watching evening news and reading before going to sleep.
Alongside dinner discussions with her family, the best in everyday life are the small successes at work. On the other hand, the most stressful at work is to compromise many too different views. And in routines, like some other women (Mirka!), she truly hates cooking and cleaning!
To keep life in balance, there needs to be room for hobbies and sources of energy. Maippi plays Finnish baseball, goes to body balance-lessons, downhill- and cross-country skiing and loves to read, watch quality movies, have a glass of prosecco or cava with a friend and when, now and then, needing for an absolute treat, nothing beats a face massage. She is kind to herself: at 43, it’s ok to look like 43-year old.
Go and learn more about “pesäpallo”, Finland’s National Sport, developed by Lauri “Tahko” Pihkala at the 1920’s. If in Finland, go and watch a game!
DREAMS & FEARS, PAST & FUTURE
What are your dreams?
“Learning to play saxophone, travelling to South America, Africa and South East Asia with my family.”
What is your worst fear?
“That something bad happens to my sons.”
What is the most important advice you have received?
“Be yourself, neither a shadow nor a glossy photo of yourself.”
What has been the greatest global invention of your time?
“Social media.”
Where would you donate your time/money to?
“The same I work with, ending female genital mutilation (FGM) and child marriage.”
Has the position of girls/women changed during your lifetime?
“Many positive changes have taken place, and many glass ceilings have been broken, including high political offices now held by women in all continents. More girls are going to school, less girls are married off underaged, more women are literate and earning money for the work they do, less women die due pregnancy, and more men share the domestic duties. But many drawbacks remain; for example, in several countries, majority of girls still undergo female genital mutilation, women are obliged by legislation to obey their husbands and not to move freely without male escort, legislation doesn’t criminalize marital rape etc.”
If you could, what advice would you give to your 20-year-old self?
“Stay true to yourself. Don’t hesitate to let loose something if you want something else.”
Where will you be in 10 years?
“My sons then 22 and 24, I might be working abroad. Also, staying in Helsinki and sticking to my current job seems like compelling option.”
What would you say to a woman of your age who lives across the world?
“If anyone ever argues that you are subordinate to men or boys, or have less talent and opportunities because of your gender, ignore that!”
And what about Christmas traditions? Since the kids were born, Maippi’s family has spent every other Christmas abroad – downhill skiing or sunbathing – and every other year at home with grandparents to give the children example of more traditional Christmas. If it was up to Maippi, and she could afford, she would spend every Christmas skiing in Lapland or in the Alps. This year, she and her family will spend Christmas at home, enjoying the company of her two godchildren, 2 and 4 years, certainly bringing some extra thrill to the Christmas celebrations.
QUICK ONES
Drink: coffee
Favorite food: avocado pasta
Delicacy: ice cream
Restaurant/cafè: Yes Yes Yes (Helsinki) www.yesyesyes.fi
Spice: salt
Feeling: excitement
Music: Seventies soul disco
Scent: citrus
Travel destination: Alps
Book: A woman of firsts: The midwife who built a hospital and changed the world by Edna Adam Ismail
Movie: Life is beautiful (La vita è bella) by Roberto Benigni
Favorite public holiday: Christmas
Artist/band: Aretha Franklin
Plant: Monstera deliciosa
Evening routine: watching evening news while stretching
Favorite piece of clothing: jeans
Animal: dog
Scenery: mountains
Sport: Finnish baseball
Motto: “Feminism is not about women’s power over men, but women’s power over themselves”. (Mary Shelley