Reykjavík Grapevine - 08.04.2005, Qupperneq 12

IS THERE REASON TO WORRY ABOUT
ICELANDIC VAGINAS?
by Þórdís E. Þorvaldsdóttir Bachmann
The President was not the only
politician to attend V-day. Ingibjörg
Sólrún Gísladóttir, former mayor of
Reykjavík, read a harrowing chapter
from The Vagina Monologues,
describing one woman’s experience
of the Balkan War’s rape camps.
During the evening’s many musical
numbers and performances, violence
statistics were projected on a screen
behind the performers.
The audience gasped audibly when
statistics on our beloved Iceland
were published. 279 rapes were
reported to the Icelandic police last
year. It is a known fact that only a
fraction of rapes are reported, so in
all likelihood there were twice as
many rapes committed. Out of these
279, only 17 people were charged
with the crime, or about 6% of the
offenders. Out of these 17 people,
2 were sentenced, meaning that
only 0.6% of the victims saw justice
served. Obviously, these statistics are
not encouraging for rape victims who
consider reporting their offender.
Stígamót, the counselling and
information centre on sexual violence
in Iceland, reported 8 gang-rapes last
year. This means that one gang-rape
takes place every six weeks in our
civilized country.
Iceland’s difficulties were made even
clearer when the issue of rape charges
were brought forward. For this, a
young woman came on stage and
told her story. Her courage could not
be measured when she described her
humiliating ordeal to the audience
of the jam-packed Opera. The first
question the police asked her during
interrogation was what she had worn
that fateful night. It bears witness
to the longevity of the myth that a
woman can “ask to be raped” by the
way she dresses.
The air was thick with anticipation
when Eve Ensler herself finally took
the stage. With soft sincerity, she
described how she was molested
and beaten as a child by her father.
When the pain became unbearable,
Ensler invented an imaginary friend,
Mr. Aligator, whom she used to call
upon to come save her. Needless to
say, Mr. Aligator never came to her
rescue, no matter how hard Ensler
prayed. For the majority of rape
victims in Iceland, the odds of them
getting justice served are as high as
of Mr. Aligator coming to rescue
them.
Nine years ago, a woman stood
on a poorly lit stage in New York
City and voiced her concerns about
vaginas. She worried about the
darkness and secrecy that surrounds
them and compared them to the
Bermuda Triangle. Nobody reports
back from there. This woman was
Eve Ensler, who put forth her
concerns in the play The Vagina
Monologues. Over the course of
these nine years, Ensler has come
a long way. Today, the global
movement V-day, a result of the
successful Vagina Monologues, is
celebrated in 1102 places worldwide.
V-day fights violence against women
and makes miracles happen every
day. These miracles range from
saving African girls from genital
mutilation, to offering rape victims
in the United States comfort and
care.

With due respect for V-day’s miracle
makers, the day of celebration
brought about one poignant
question: isn’t it time to raise
awareness about violence against
women in our enlightened and equal
rights-minded Iceland?
V-day was celebrated in
Iceland on March 8th, the
international Women’s Day.
The ceremony was beautiful
and well organized by the
Icelandic “vagina warriors,”
as they call themselves. The
Icelandic Opera hosted the
event, which was crowded
with excited guests. The
President himself, Ólafur
Ragnar Grímsson, attended
the ceremony, which makes
him the first vagina-friendly
president in the world. As
a result, he was granted
the title “honorary vagina
warrior,” much to the
audience’s amusement.
Honorary vagina warrior
When the snow has melted
and the first sunbeams break
through the windows into
our homes, all Icelanders
wake from hibernation
and start browsing through
their family books, trying to
detect a teenager fit for the
big party, aka “fermingar”:
confirmation. Once a victim
is found, he is condemned
to the biggest party of his
life, including carefully
selected but utterly tasteless
invitations, “professional”
photographers, daily changing
guestlists, and, last but not
least, presents. But just
as absurd as this higgeldy
piggeldy is the underlying
contradiction that a country
completely adverse to religion
should be so obsessed with
confirmations.
Like Christmas, With Even More Consumerism
But do Icelanders really loathe
religion? Why is it, then, that the
island adopted Christianity without
making a big fuss unlike any other
“Christianised” nation? Why
then is the President of Iceland
simultaneously the head of the
state church? And why do 290,000
Icelanders today belong and pay
taxes to religious institutions?
An explanation many Icelanders
readily give is that they simply want
to make sure that they will not end
up in an eternal hotpot, in case there
really is a God.
Another explanation is that the
traditional Icelandic folk beliefs
regard human beings as equals to
any other animate or inanimate form
of nature, be it animals, plants or
stones.
In opposition to this, in Christian
and other world religions, the human
being has a central position, stands in
the spotlight and thus enjoys a much
greater attention, which might be the
final salvation Icelanders are looking
for, having been isolated from
worldwide matters topographically
and politically for many centuries.
However, there are also non-
religious groups (in Iceland as well as
in other countries) that celebrate an
alternative confirmation for teenagers
that is not in the least reminiscent
of the original idea of confirming a
belief. But while in many countries
this celebration has turned into an
official acceptance of the teenager
into the adult world, Icelandic
confirmees are not even allowed to
sip the symbolic glass of wine that
usually goes with this tradition.
Another particularity is that
in Iceland, all the family is
congratulating each other on the
day of confirmation. Grandpa
congratulates the confirmee’s sister
for the confirmation of her brother,
the sister congratulates grandpa
in return for the confirmation of
his grandson and so on. Quite
confusing, but, as a first-hand
witness explained to me, “they
probably want to clarify who is
related to whom in what way, and
to be simply consequent in a society
where everyone is a winner and
constantly achieves great things.”
So why do roughly 9 out of 10
thirteen to fourteen year-olds get
confirmed each year? Is it because
children of that age are reasonable
enough to decide on the values of
religious belief and commitment?
When asked how many people she
knew believed in God, my Icelandic
friend said: “one.” When asked
how many of her family members
did NOT have a confirmation, the
answer was the same.
The great amount of TV spots
advertising party services for
confirmations and numerous
brochures and newspaper adverts the
banks publish are definitely doing
their best to turn this time of year
into… a second Christmastime,
the other holiday this country of
nonreligious consumerists adores.
Julika Huether reports on Confirmations
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