Reykjavík Grapevine - 14.03.2014, Blaðsíða 16

Nanna Dís
Reykjavík · Engjateigur 19 and Laugavegur 20b · Hafnarfjörður · Strandgata 34 · www.glo.is
This is Solla Eiriksdottir, the winner
of Best Gourmet Raw Chef and Best
Simple Raw Chef in the 2011 and
2012 “Best of Raw” Awards. Come and try out one
of her great dishes at her restaurant Gló.
RUB23 Aðalstræti 2 101 Reykjavík
Phone +354 553 5323 reykjavik@rub23.is
RUB23 Kaupvangsstræti 6 600 Akureyri
Phone +354 462 2223 rub@rub23.is
www.rub23.is
Funky, fresh and full of flavor!
You must try it!
PI
PA
R
\T
BW
A

S
ÍA

1
32
72
3
16The Reykjavík Grapevine
at the University of Iceland. It’s a
multilingual centre that is more
important than most people realise,
as it speaks to everybody around the
world. When it becomes a reality, it
will be an intellectual centre repre-
senting the world’s great variety of
cultures through language. There are
6,800 living languages in the world,
and it is important to safeguard them
so that the memories and knowledge
contained in them are not lost. You
don’t have memory without language.
Your language is your identity. You can
never escape that.
Fashion’s Stifling Effect On
Women
In the last election we came close to
seeing another female president. Do you
think her gender was an issue?
No, it’s not an issue anymore. I’m
rather grateful that I did this, because
I broke the glass ceiling, not just for
Iceland, but for the whole world—and
it was world news. The headlines read
"Woman Elected President," not who
was elected, just woman elected. I got
the headline sent to me in Chinese. It
was strange.
Since I was the first woman in
the world, L'Académie Française—the
French Academy—had a meeting to
discuss whether I should be addressed
‘Madame la présidente’ or ‘Madame
le president’, when I was invited to
pay an official visit in France. They
decided that it should be ‘Madame le
président’ and then I met women in
parliament—at l’Assemblée générale—
and they asked me, ‘how can you ac-
cept that they want to call you Madame
le président? You are a woman. Why
don’t you use Madame la présidente?’
Now it’s natural to say, ‘Madame la
présidente. Ah oui, Madame la prési-
dente.’
Of course it’s been 34 years since
I was elected. In 1996 when I stepped
down as president I became the found-
ing chair of The Council of Women
World Leaders [made up of female
presidents and prime ministers] and
there were about seven of us—Mary
Robinson, Thatcher didn’t want to
join us, [Tansu] Çiller, yes we were six,
seven—and now there are almost 50.
That is something.
What do you think are the main reasons
that we haven’t achieved gender equality
in Iceland today, 30 some odd years after
you entered office as the first female?
I think in a way it is an unconscious
thing in society—in every society.
Women in the world still have a ways
to go before men accept that they are
their equals. Why is that? Are they
afraid? Of what? Mind you, women
with the same specialised education,
such as doctors, are equally paid, but
there are so many jobs in society that
are considered women’s jobs and are
therefore not valued as highly. It’s
also still the case that the same job
is labelled differently for a man than
it is for a woman. He’s called ‘verk-
stjóri’ (“foreman’) while she’s called
‘yfirmaður þvottahús’ (“laundromat
manager”). The world still thinks that
men are intellectually stronger than
women. We know that they are not so
lucky.
It’s very remarkable though, as
soon as women show the world that
they have a head equal to a man’s
head—which is very difficult for men
to accept, even today, because they
are so used to running the world—an
invisible hand comes and changes the
fashion. It shortens the skirts to show
the legs. It cuts the dresses to show the
bosom and the lower back. It’s as if the
fashion is saying: "Remember girls,
you are sex objects, first and fore-
most." Women’s bodies are beautiful
of course, but they are going around
half naked with fully dressed men only
because women’s fashion encourages
them.
For instance, these heels—I’m sor-
ry if you are wearing them [she looks
under the table to check (I wasn’t!)]—
these heels make it so women can’t
walk. I was with my colleagues at
UNESCO in Azerbaijan and a couple
of us had been invited to a presidential
palace with marble steps and I watched
one of my colleagues in these heels
and thought, ‘Good heavens, will she
manage to go down these steps?’ She
managed, but you should have seen
her—a very elegant woman who sud-
denly became crippled.
So this has changed since you were
president?
The fashion in the ‘80s was different.
All over the world, my colleagues—
well I didn’t have many female col-
leagues, but their wives and women
in parliament—wore elegant suits. In
the ‘80s everyone was designing these
suits for women who were ready to step
forth and wanted to be elegant. Today
you open a magazine and everyone
looks the same. I was asking my
friends the other day, ‘did we actually
all look alike?’ Today there is tendency
for fashion to put everyone into the
same shape, a tendency for fashion to
take away from personality. I am very
curious to see how women are dressed
at the Oscars. That will be a guideline
to the next steps in fashion—how they
are underdressed.
Vigdís on her first official
visit to Denmark in February
1981. She is wearing a
custom sheepskin coat made
by Sláturfélag Suðurlands
tannery (whose best selling
product today is a hot dog).
Vigdís standing on her
balcony after her elec-
tion in June 1980. She
is wearing a wool dress
hand-knit and designed
by supporter Steingerður
Hólmgeirsdóttir.
Photos by Ragnar Th (top) and Gunnar Elison
(bottom), used with permission from the
Reykjavík Museum of Photography.