Reykjavík Grapevine - 10.10.2014, Page 8

Iceland | For Dummies
Anyone with a favourite pet
knows how hard it is to be apart
when travelling. One man who tried to
enter Iceland with three Madagas-
car hissing cockroaches can attest
to this. Despite his professed love for
the creatures, customs authorities in-
formed him that Icelandic law prohibits
bringing pets to Iceland—even pets as
adorable as greasy, hissing, crawling
cockroaches the size of your thumb.
Speaking of pets, an Akureyri
man recently found himself on
the wrong end of the law for burying
his beloved, deceased pet chihuahua,
Prins, in his backyard. This is apparent-
ly illegal, as health authorities phoned
him, demanding he disinter the body
and bury it somewhere else. He told
reporters that he has no intention of
doing this. And good on him for that.
We saw ‘Pet Sematary’. We know what
happens.
Remember that smarmy bellend
with the orange Range Rover who
was double-parking across disabled
spaces, and how he bragged that he
pays less in fines than he would for
legal parking? Well, Mr. Range Rover’s
bragging days are over, if the City of
Reykjavík has anything to say about it.
They recently doubled fines for park-
ing illegally. Now leaving your car in a
disabled space could run you 20,000
ISK. That’s like, two weeks of groceries
right there. Think about it!
It is possible that we may soon
have a court decision on the le-
gal definition of a Facebook “Like.”
The defence team for former Minis-
ter of the Interior assistant Gísli Freyr
Valdórsson has argued that the prose-
cution of their client is prejudicially mo-
tivated, on the evidence of the fact that
said prosecutor “Liked” a less-than-
BY PAUL FONTAINE
8
The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 16 — 2014
NEWS
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On Monday, Sep-tember 29, the Icelandic Foreign Minister Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson gave a speech to
the United Nations General Assem-
bly. In between talking about things
that few present cared what Iceland
thinks about, he mentioned that the
governments of Iceland and Suri-
name had decided to plan a confer-
ence on gender equality only open
to male political leaders.
Because what is needed to
achieve gender equality is men
with political power telling oth-
ers what to do?
It is hard to do justice to what
he said without quoting his speech
in full: "Iceland and Suriname will
convene a 'Barbershop' confer-
ence in January 2015 where men will
discuss gender equality with other
men, with a special focus on address-
ing violence against women. This will
be a unique conference as it will be
the first time at the United Nations
that we bring together only men lead-
ers to discuss gender equality. It will
be an exceptional contribution to
the Beijing+20 and HeForShe cam-
paigns."
Is HeForShe that thing that Emma
Watson spoke about and then got
threatened with having nude pho-
tos of her posted on the internet?
Yes, neatly proving her point that
the world needs more feminists of all
genders. The threat turned out to be
a hoax perpetrated by a group of in-
ternet pranksters pretending to be a
marketing company pretending to be
another group of internet pranksters.
That the pictures were not real did
not make it any nicer for Watson to
receive threats of public humiliation.
Watson is the spokeswoman of the
HeForShe campaign to get men and
boys to work for gender equality. It is
run by the United Nations Entity for
Gender Equality and the Empower-
ment of Women, also known as sim-
ply UN Women.
And what's Beijing+20? Besides be-
ing the very wrong answer I gave
on my final exam in math.
It is a programme by UN Women
to highlight progress made in gender
equality since the UN's Beijing Dec-
laration in 1995 to advance gender
equality and acknowledge women's
voices and experience. And also to
highlight where progress has been
disappointingly slow. There will
be many events in the coming year
sponsored and hosted by various UN
organizations. However, the confer-
ence announced by the Icelandic For-
eign Minister is not a UN-sponsored
event, though UN Women will pro-
vide technical and organizing sup-
port.
Male politicians talk about things
while UN Women do all the work.
Is this a conference or satiric per-
formance art?
The announcement by the Ice-
landic Foreign Minister was greeted
with criticism. Professor Dyan Ma-
zurana, a major contributor to the
2002 Women, Peace and Security
report for the UN Security Council,
said when interviewed by Al-Jazeera
that women "don't want to be spoken
for, we'd like to speak for ourselves."
She also noted that the UN "has a long
and disgraceful history of men-only
meetings on issues that are founda-
tional to the rights of women."
I guess this conference will be
unique in bringing only men lead-
ers together to do something else
than laughing at gender equality.
It is not entirely unique, as the UN
already maintains the Network of
Men Leaders dedicated to speaking
out against violence against women,
though this group includes artists and
other public figures, as well as politi-
cians. When asked by Al-Jazeera,
member of said network, Gary Barker,
who works for Promundo, a Brazilian
organization that focuses on getting
men and boys to stop violence
against women, criticized
the proposed conference as
reinforcing the idea that
men "sit in a dark room,
smoke cigars and hold on
to power."
I guess it's unique in being
called a "barbershop" con-
ference.
Outside of conventions
for barbershop quartets, of
course. The idea behind the
conference is to create a safe
space for male political lead-
ers to talk about how to
reduce violence against
women. This is not an en-
tirely insane idea, as some
studies have shown that
men are more likely to
change their attitudes to
violence against women during all-
male discussions than in mixed-gen-
der ones. The analogy to barbershops
is that they are places where men dis-
cuss the issues of the day in private.
I guess at least barbershops are
usually bright so that the barber
doesn't cut anybody.
And it is difficult to smoke a cigar
while being shaved. After receiving
criticism, the organizers of the con-
ference said that women would take
part in some sessions, but would be
excluded in others. While the hearts
of the organizers are surely in the
right place, perhaps listening to what
women have to say about gender
equality and violence against women
would be the best place to start. And
as shown by too many conferences of
political leaders every year, there is
nothing particularly unique about a
male-only conference.
So What's This Men's Only
UN Gender Conference
I Keep Hearing About?
Words by Kári Tulinius @Kattullus
Illustration by Inga María Brynjarsdóttir