In Finland, a bakery looked for a man to hire
The Kiuaspulla bakery in Kemijärvi, Finland, posted a Facebook advertisement seeking a man to join its team. As YLE News reports, specifying gender in this way in an advertisement violates Finland’s Act on Equality between Women and Men. The bakery later replaced the word “man” in the post with the neutral word “person.”
Facebook advertisement
In the post, the bakery was looking for an energetic man who gets up early to join its team. Entrepreneur Tuula Lehtola explained that five women work at the company and there are no men. According to her, as winter approaches, there may be a need to repair equipment, so the bakery wanted to find a man who would work in the mornings with baked goods and perform other tasks.
At the same time, the official advertisement that Lehtola submitted to the state employment platform sought a person without specifying gender, as required by law.
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Reaction and the law
The Koti-Lappi newspaper was the first to report on the unusual advertisement. According to Lehtola, the wording about looking for a man appeared after a joke by one of the older employees that a man was needed “for eye candy.”
The Facebook post drew users’ attention. Lehtola said that comments included calls to boycott the company, and she described equality requirements as burdensome for an entrepreneur seeking a specific candidate. By her estimate, the bakery received about ten applications, three of them from men.
Finland’s Act on Equality between Women and Men came into force in 1987. It prohibits discrimination, including on the grounds of sex, gender identity, pregnancy, childbirth, parenthood and family responsibilities.
