Sanna Marin, it turns out, wasn’t on any illegal drugs whatsoever. The 36-year-old prime minister of Finland was simply high on life in the leaked video of her dancing exuberantly at a party with some friends. I imagine this comes as a great disappointment to the opposition leader who demanded she undergo a drugs test, and the rightwingers who have been working themselves into a frenzy at the cheek of a woman who thinks she can lead a country and have some fun.
You don’t have to squint to see the sexist double standards involved in this “scandal”. Boris Johnson having an unknown number of children with multiple women? Well, that’s just Boris being Boris. Donald Trump paying large sums of money to a pornography star? Boys being boys. A woman dancing with a few of her friends in a living room, though? DRUG TEST THE WITCH!
I shouldn’t be glib; I understand why some people are so worked up about Marin letting her hair down. If I’m honest, I found the prime minister’s behaviour unbelievable. I mean, the woman is a geriatric millennial, just like me. And yet she manages to juggle being prime minister with being a mother and still has the energy to dance with her friends while looking impossibly glamorous. Come on, that’s just showing off! I can barely summon the energy to brush my hair some mornings, and my job doesn’t involve negotiations with Nato. (We would all be in a lot of trouble if it did.) I would have to be pumped to the gills with amphetamines to be out dancing after 10pm these days.
You know what, though? While the drug-test demands were mired in sexism, I don’t think it is a bad idea for politicians to be compelled to take one occasionally. In the US, a number of employers (including Coca-Cola) make their workers take random drug tests, but the people who run the country and fashion punitive drug policies are not forced to submit to testing themselves. Drug tests all round, I reckon. It could be extremely eye-opening.
• Arwa Mahdawi is a Guardian columnist
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