60 Time February 3, 2020
T
he photographer is trying to coax the
Prime Minister of Finland into a three-
quarter pose, with knees turned slightly to
the side, hands demurely joined in her lap.
But Sanna Marin isn’t having it. Just 11 days
after taking office, she faces the camera squarely, legs
slightly apart, and rests her hands firmly on her thighs.
“This is how you would do it if I were a man,” she says.
Finland’s new leader has good reason to think
about how she is portrayed. After her predeces-
sor resigned on Dec. 3, the 34-year-old became the
youngest Prime Minister in Finnish history and the
world’s youngest female state leader as well. That sta-
tus earned her and her coalition government (all five
party leaders are women, and four are below the age
of 35) global headlines. But for Marin, the focus on at-
tributes out of her control has been more a distraction
than a cause for celebration. “It’s more work,” she says
of the attention. “Of course, it’s also a great oppor-
tunity for Finland to present itself, and I’m grateful
for that. But I think if you focus on the issues, and
not the person, it’s easier.”Marin has been focusing on the issues for most of
her adult life. Raised by her mother and her mother’s
same-sex partner after her parents separated when
she was very young, she didn’t grow up dreaming of
being Prime Minister. “I could never have imagined
that. Politicians and politics seemed very far away,”
she says of her working-class upbringing. She was
the first in her family to attend university, and it was
only there that she developed a political conscience.
“My background influenced how I see society, how I
see equality between people,” she says. “But it’s not
because I’m from a rainbow family that I’m in poli-
tics. I’m in politics because I thought that the older
generation wasn’t doing enough about the big issues
of the future. I needed to act. I couldn’t just think,
It’s somebody else’s job.”
It became her job officially in 2012, when sheFINN
DE
SIÈCLE
The world’s youngest female
head of government wants
equality, not celebrity
BY LISA ABEND/HELSINKI‘I don’t think that fighting climate change means highercosts and a worse future. It’s the opposite.’—
Sanna MarinIN MY SEVEN DECADES
INVOLVED IN POLITICS, THE
MOST IMPORTANT LESSON
I LEARNED IS THE VALUE OF
REALITY. THERE ARE THINGS
I CAN DO, SO I DO THEM. THERE
ARE THINGS I CANNOT DO, SO I
ACCEPT THAT AND GO ON WITH
WHAT I CAN DO.
IF I WERE A YOUNG MAN
STARTING OUT TODAY, I CAN’T
SAY I WOULD DO ANYTHING
DIFFERENT—IWOULDSTILL
WORK TOWARD HELPING IN THE
DEVELOPMENT OF MY COUNTRY
SO I AND OTHER MALAYSIANS
WOULD BE RESPECTED BY THE
WORLD. BUT YOUNG PEOPLE
TODAY LIVE IN A DIFFERENT
WORLD. THERE ARE SO MANY
THINGS HAPPENING, IT CAN
BE DIFFICULT TO FOCUS
THEIR EFFORTS. IF THEY GET
DISTRACTED, THEY MIGHT
RESORT TO CHASING ARTIFICIAL
HAPPINESS. SO MY ADVICE TO
THE LEADERS OF TOMORROW
IS TO STAY FOCUSED ON WHAT
MAT TERS.
Mahathir, 94, is the Prime Minister of Malaysia
MAHATHIR MOHAMAD
Advice from the world’s
oldest state leader