Trapped in Equality

This book is the first comprehensive account of developments in legal equality in Finland from the late 19th through the early 21st century. The book demonstrates that equality is never a status or a state of affairs that either exists or does not exist. It is rather a continuous and controversial process of creating meanings that are bound to time and place. By exploring legal discourses, the book shows how in Finnish legal history, the formal and symmetrical understanding of equality has been dominant.