By joining the Red Guards, women stepped out of their traditional role in Finnish society and were demonized by the Whites, the anti-Communist paramilitary.

The Red commanders were reluctant to commit the female Guards units to battle and usually held them in reserve.

Finnish working-class women took a more active role in society beginning in the late 1800s, most notably in the suffrage movement which began during the 1890s.

[3][4] The Finnish Civil War was a conflict from 27 January to 15 May 1918 for the leadership and control of Finland during the country's transition from a Grand Duchy of the Russian Empire to an independent state.

The civil war was fought between the Reds, led by a section of the Social Democratic Party, and the Whites, controlled by the conservative-based Senate.

The paramilitary White Guards consisted of farmers, along with middle-class and upper-class social strata, and controlled rural central and northern Finland.

The women cut their hair short and wore unconventional clothing, often rejecting skirts and dresses in favour of trousers (worn only by men at the time).

Their rejection of traditional values earned the enmity of the Finnish Whites because the working women did not fit the roles of conservative, middle-class society.

[10] Although many women testified in court after the war that they joined the Red Guards for the money (a higher-than-usual salary), their testimony was considered self-serving since they faced sentencing.

[12] According to an upcoming 2017 book by historian Tuomas Hoppu, there were at least 2,600 members[13]— more than three percent of the 80,000 Red Guard fighters.

The Political Offence Court accused more than 5,500 women of being Reds after the war ended in May 1918, a fraction of the total.

They were perceived as a threat by the conservative Finnish Whites, who considered them immoral, unfeminine women unfit for the roles of wife and mother.

A well-known outburst was made by Finnish author Ilmari Kianto, who called Red women "wolf bitches" who should be exterminated.

In the Battle of Syrjäntaka in Tuulos on 28 April, over 4,000 refugees clashed against the German lines with the Valkeakoski Women's Guard in front.

In only a few hours, more than 300 Red Guard fighters and dozens of German soldiers died in battle at a highway crossroads.

The women had already cleared the way for the refugees the previous day in the village of Alvettula, crossing a bridge held by White troops.

The largest mass executions took place in Lahti, where 20,000–30,000 fleeing Reds were captured by German and White troops at the end of April.

The number may be considerably higher; the Labour Archives of Finland's Terror List includes the names of 600 women, but their fate cannot be verified.

[19] Women wearing men's clothing, such as trousers or a military outfit, were commonly considered armed fighters and summarily shot.

[20] According to recent studies the executions were an organized effort to "cleanse" Finnish society of the Red Guard women.

[15] In Lahti the executed men were usually commanders and platoon leaders, but in the case of women ordinary fighters were also shot.

[17] In addition to executing Red women, the Whites carried out ethnic cleansing; more than 400 Russian civilians died in the Vyborg massacre.

[16] They fought the German Baltic Sea Division in the Battle of Helsinki on 12–13 April, defending the Linnanmäki hill.