
Gender Studies
Gender Studies at the Tampere University has a strong interdisciplinary and social science orientation. Our research draws on and contributes to recent developments in feminist theories and methodologies, and engages actively with the societal and political contexts it arises from. We approach gender intersectionally, analysing how gender emerges in relation to other categories of difference, such as race and ethnicity, class, sexuality, age and disability.
Our key research areas include: politics, economy and activism; science, technology and higher education; politics of affect, emotions and embodiment; and working life.
Testifying to the strength and success of our research, “Gender, institutions and politics” is mentioned as a top research field at Tampere University. This reflects the significance, impact and high quality of gender studies at both national and international levels.
Gender Studies at Tampere university has one ERC funded project, 4 Academy of Finland funded projects, 4 Academy of Finland Research Fellows and Postdoctoral Researchers, one Nordic Centre of Excellence and three Kone Foundation projects. In addition to strong research in the field of gender studies, these projects offer opportunities for our Masters level students to do their theses within the projects. We also welcome PhD student applications. The projects can be found on the research tab. Our Gender Studies Master's programme welcomes application every two years, while our Doctoral Programme in Social Sciences can be applied to twice a year.
Gender studies journal Sukupuolentutkimus – Genusforskning will be edited from Tampere university
Maria Temmes and Elina Helosvuori will work as editors for journal’s 2022 issues. Ilmari Leppihalme will continue as the editorial coordinator.
Additionally the book series Gender and Politics published by Palgrave Macmillan is edited by Johanna Kantola (Tampere University) and Sarah Childs (Birbeck, University of London).
Banner: Art by Jukka Metsäaho, photo by Samuli Turunen
Research themes
Politics, Economy and Activism
Politics of Affect, Embodiment and Close Relations
Science, Technology and Society
Politics, Economy and Activism analyses struggles around gender equality, gender and sexual diversity, equality policies and feminist politics within traditional institutions – such as, parliaments, political parties, economic institutions, labour markets as well as NGOized civil society and grassroots level. We study the interplay between international, national and local level institutions, both formal and informal. We explore the changing power relations where governance structures, democracy, and different forms of activism are negotiated.
Research projects in the theme:
- Gender, party politics and democracy in Europe: A study of European Parliament's Party Groups (EUGenDem), European Research Council Consolidator Grant, 2018-2023, PI: Johanna Kantola.
- Flows of Power - media as site and agent of politics (FLOPO), Academy of Finland, 2019–2022, PI: Anu Koivunen.
- Affective Activism: Sites of Queer and Trans World-Making (AQT), Academy of Finland, 2021–2025, PI: Tuula Juvonen.
- On the road to gender-sensitive parliaments? Gender Equality and Democratic Practices in the Finnish, German, and Polish Parliament Compared(GSParls), Academy of Finland, 2021–2026, Academy Research Fellow: Petra Ahrens.
- The impact of the Covid-19 crisis on gender equality in Finland, Government’s analysis, assessment and research activities, 2020–2022, PI for Tampere University: Anna Elomäki
- (Irti)kytkentöjä: ruokaomavaraistuminen kumppanuuslajien verkostoissa, Kone Foundation, 2019–2022, PI: Pieta Savinotko.
Politics of Affect, Embodiment and Close Relations conducts empirical work on affects, everyday experiences, and politics in social and intimate relations, intersectional differences, bodily boundaries, and cultural imaginaries. Key themes include intimate relations and sexualities, media representations, activism and social changes, knowledge production, and developing queer and feminist methods to study affect, embodiment, and relationships.
Research projects in the theme:
- Intimacy in data-driven culture (IDA), Academy of Finland Strategic Research Funding, 2019–2022, PI: Anu Koivunen.
- Affective Activism: Sites of Queer and Trans World-Making (AQT), Academy of Finland, 2021–2025, PI: Tuula Juvonen.
- The Everyday Ethics of Reproductive Outsourcing: Makin Good Life in the Era of Biocapitalism (EEROS), Academy of Finland, 2019–2024, Academy Research Fellow: Riikka Homanen.
Science, Technology and Society provides intersectional studies of the relation between knowledge production, power and social justice, as well as studies of how technology is enacted in everyday life. In doing so we engage with the dynamic processes and relations that intertwine human and non-human actors, institutions, and society. We examine socio-material practices and policies as gendered embodied phenomena, for example, in the fields of biomedicine, biotechnology, bioeconomies and healthcare.
Research projects in the theme:
- Affect and Biotechnological Change: Three Vaccine Debates in Europe, Academy of Finland, 2018–2023, Academy Research Fellow: Venla Oikkonen.
- The Everyday Ethics of Reproductive Outsourcing: Making Good Life in the Era of Biocapitalism (EEROS), Academy of Finland, 2019–2024, Academy Research Fellow: Riikka Homanen.
- Gendered Chronic Disease, Embodied Differences and Biomedical Knowledge (GenDis), Academy of Finland and Kone Foundation, 2021–2025, PI: Venla Oikkonen.
- Technology, Ethics and Reproduction: Controversy in the Era of Normalisation, (ReproEthics), Kone Foundation, 2019–2022, PI: Riikka Homanen.
Working Life studies how work is shaping gendered and racialized subjectivities and how different power relations are conditioning working life. We focus on the changes, continuities and new forms of work with a critical lens on individual as well as organizational and institutional level and in local, national and international contexts.
Key themes include gendering practices in work; equal pay; the embodiment and bodily requirements in work; women's entrepreneurship; shifting boundaries between work and non-work; and burn-out at work; race; ethnicity; power; neoliberal conditions of work; digital capitalism; the role of affective and emotional labor; vulnerability in work, and higher education.
Research projects in the theme:
- Beyond the gender paradox: Women's careers in technology-driven research and innovation in and outside of academe, Nordwit, Nordic Center of Excellence, Nordforsk, 2017–2022, PI: Marja Vehviläinen.
- Neoliberalizing Welfare State Employment: Ideology, Institutional Agency, and Gendered Labour Market Outcomes, Academy of Finland, 2018–2022, Postdoctoral researcher: Paula Koskinen Sandberg.
Our Gender Studies Master's programme welcomes application every two years, while our Doctoral Programme in Social Sciences can be applied to twice a year.
Master’s programme
https://www.tuni.fi/en/study-with-us/gender-studies
https://www.tuni.fi/fi/tule-opiskelemaan/sukupuolentutkimus-yhteiskuntatutkimuksen-maisteriohjelma (In Finnish)
Doctoral programme
https://www.tuni.fi/en/study-with-us/doctoral-programme-social-sciences
https://www.tuni.fi/fi/tule-opiskelemaan/yhteiskuntatutkimuksen-tohtoriohjelma (In Finnish)
Social sciences programme (In Finnish)
https://www.tuni.fi/fi/tule-opiskelemaan/yhteiskuntatutkimuksen-koulutus
Are you interested in studying Gender Studies at Bachelor’s level?
Seminar teaching is offered in periods II and III:
YKT.YKE.504/505 Introduction to Gender Studies, 5 ECTS (period II)
Online course organised by HILMA Network for Gender Studies
YKT.YKE.501 Genders and Sexualities, 5 ECTS (period III)
Seminar course by Luca Tainio: Introduction to Trans Studies
Besides attending seminar teaching, the courses may also be completed by taking an exam or writing an essay independently. You may register for the exams at TUNI Exam or contact the responsible teacher to write an essay for the following courses:
YKT.228 Gender, Body and Intersectionality, 5 ECTS
Responsible teacher: Tuula Juvonen.
YKT.215 Gender Studies: Theories and Concepts, 5 ECTS
Responsible teacher: Tuula Juvonen.
YKT.YKE.501 Genders and Sexualities, 5 ECTS
Responsible teacher: Tuula Juvonen.
YKT.YKE.502 Global Issues of Gender and Embodiment, 5 ECTS
Responsible teacher: Hanna Ojala
YKT.YKE.503 Men and Masculinities, 5 ECTS
Responsible teacher: Hanna Ojala
Are you interested in studying Gender Studies at Master’s level?
Seminar teaching is offered in periods II, III and IV:
SSR.GEN.030 Feminist Classics, 5 ECTS (period II, continues to period III)
Responsible teacher: Marja Peltola
SSR.GEN.070 Gender Equality as work, 5 ECTS (period IV)
Responsible teacher: Hanna Ojala
Besides attending seminar teaching, the courses may also be completed by writing an essay independently. Please contact the responsible teacher to write an essay for the following courses:
YKT.SUT.312 Affects, Emotions and Body, 5 ECTS
Responsible teacher: Marja Peltola
SSR.GEN.040 Feminist Theory, 5 ECTS
Responsible teacher: Marja Peltola
SSR.GEN.050 Feminist Methodology, 5 ECTS
Responsible teacher: Marja Peltola

EUGenDem workshop sessions: Gender, democracy and polarized politics in Europe
EUGenDem is a European Research Council (ERC) funded research project that addresses crucial questions about the gendered policies and practices of European Parliament’’s party politics (2018-2023). COVID-19 restrictions have caused many of us to lose the opportunity to interact with each other and to discuss our research. To counter this, the EUGenDem team is organizing a series of workshops with both academics and practitioners to debate the polarized politics in Europe today. Seven workshops were successfully organized and held remotely from December 2020 to June 2021. More than twenty speakers from several European universities (as well as UK and USA) were welcomed to share their expertise on European parliament’s political groups; gender and parliaments; sexual and reproductive rights; gender politics in Covid-19; and parliamentary ethnography. All workshop sessions were recorded and available from the link below. In the academic year 2021-2, EUGenDem will be continuing their workshop sessions with topics ranging from economic and social policy, German elections, to de-democratization, and racism in Europe among others.

Winner of the award Vuoden Tiedekynä
Doctoral Researcher in Gender Studies Pieta Savinotko (former: Hyvärinen) won the annual award for academic articles granted by Kone Foundation. The awarded article is titled Mushroom-foraging on Northern Tree Plantations: Diverse Forest Economies and the Problem of Plantationocentrism and it is published in the journal Alue ja Ympäristö. The article criticizes the ways timber production has defined the ways forests are understood. Using theoretical and methodological tools developed in feminist economic geography Savinotko examines the diversity of forest economies, focusing especially on mushroom foraging from the perspective of livelihoods and wellbeing.

Gender Studies Conference 2020 November 12-13
Gender Studies Conference 2020 will be held in Tampere University 12-13 November 2020 with the theme of Reclaiming Futures. For further information and registration, click on the link.

[CANCELLED] Publication event for Tasa-arvopolitiikan Suunnanmuutoksia
Welcome to Tasa-arvopolitiikan suunnanmuutoksia: Talouskriisistä tasa-arvon kriiseihin book release event on 6 April 2020 at 17.00-18.30 in Tiedekulma, Helsinki. Event in Finnish.

[CANCELLED] Research Seminar: Gendering Representative Institutions: Actors, Inner Lives, and Political Struggles
Gendering Representative Institutions: Actors, Inner Lives, and Political Struggles. 25th March 2020 at 13:00-15:00 Tampere University, Linna Building, Room: Linna 5101

What does the family look like in the future? Discussion on the future of families and reproduction 7 May 2020
Research project Reproductive Futures organizes an open discussion in Helsinki central library Oodi on Thursday 7th of May. The event gathers together visions by various experts on issues such as what will family relations look like in the future and what are the new forms of kinship and reproduction.

28th Flora day seminar and celebration date
28th Flora Day seminar and celebration organized by Gender Studies will be on 11 May 2020. Further information will be posted later - for now, contact Tuija Koivunen or Jaana Kuusipalo for further information. Last year Flora day seminar and celebration selected feminist activist, blogger and journalist Emmi Nuorgam as the Honorary Flora of 2019. The seminar and celebration had presentations by both students and staff, celebration of the graduates and music!
Teaching Staff
Research Staff
Docents
Tuula Gordon
Suvi Keskinen
Aino Saarinen-Manninen