A New Plot. Revision of Icelandic Political History

While historical studies, in particular those on women and gender, have long since developed an analytical framework for treating the political history of both genders, political history has had little to say about women. In 19th-century his- tory, Icelandic women have mostly been presented in connection with establishing women’s associations, schools and similar social movements. Women have also been discussed in the history of suffrage, from when they received the right to vote in municipal elections in 1882 to the time when they exploited their newly won right to run for office on the Reykjavík city council in 1908. After obtaining the right both to vote and stand as candidates to the Althing in 1915, the first to take a seat there, campaigning in a women’s list seven years later, was Ingibjörg H. Bjarnason. once this milestone was achieved, however, history tells us that the next effort to organise a women’s list failed, so that for around four decades, women attained very few representatives in the Althing and became practically absent in Icelandic political history. The same applies to municipal politics: after their initial success, few women are mentioned in Icelandic political history until the Red Stockings Movement (Rauðsokkahreyfingin), the Women’s List (Kvennaframboð) and Women’s Alliance (Kvennalisti) arose during the 1970s and 1980s. This article, however, illustrates a way to unearth greater female components in Iceland’s political evolution, by means of a different perspective than putting the women’s movement and the struggle for women’s rights in the foreground, which women’s and gender history has hitherto emphasised. The suggested approach calls for switching the focus of political history from formal authority to a wider sense of politics, directing attention towards grassroot activities, public discourse and the political struggle for social change, as well as towards power relationships and confrontations at levels other than the upper layer of politics. While this may not be a revolutionary proposal, the situation is such that the academic handling of Icelandic political movements has so far barely touched on these areas. Historians have had a difficult time freeing themselves from the urge to fill in gaps in the history of formal politics and have therefore continued to concentrate on the mostly male politicians who were in the limelight, portraying their achievements and misdeeds, and their relations with leading foreign males. Those historians who have adopted a different approach to history writing have not contributed directly to writing political history. Among these are experts in women’s and gender history who have more or less ignored the history of political parties thus leaving a gap in the political history of women. While studies of women’s history and gender relationships have to some extent introduced female pioneers into the political analysis, this addition has been restricted to the women with tangible influence and power — the parliamentarians, ministers, members of the Red Stockings movement and the women’s lists. In other words, they were only added to the picture on the basis of traditional political viewpoints.