So Who Is Iceland’s New Lesbian Prime Minister?
Uncontrolled federal debt, rising unemployment, skyrocketing inflation: a nation's economy has collapsed under the policies of a now-defunct conservative government. But a new leader has risen to offer the country hope.
The country in question? Iceland. The leader to whom its citizens look? Openly lesbian Johanna Sigurdardottir, a 65-year-old whose Jan. 31 elevation to the post of Prime Minister would have seemed the longest of long shots thirty years ago, at the start of the former flight attendant's political career.
Or, perhaps not: this is a woman whose determination and perseverance have set her apart from others in the tiny nation's government, a woman who once formed her own party before recommitting to the Social Democratic Alliance.
With Sigurdardottir having taken the reigns of national leadership and Iceland headed toward membership in the European Union, the promise of hope for a nation beset by deep economic woes--and the Jan. 26 fall of a government that had lost the trust of its people--far outweigh the sexual orientation of the new leader.
Even so, Sigurdardottir's assumption of the role of Prime Minister marks an historic step forward: never before has an openly GLBT individual been prime minister of a nation.
This is perhaps bigger news to the rest of the world than it is to the tiny nation of less than 350,000 citizens. As noted in a Jan. 29 article posted at financial news Web site Blogging Stocks, "Sigurdardottir's sexual orientation is hardly making a ripple in Iceland."
Continued the article, "According to a journalist I heard interviewed on the BBC this morning, Icelanders could care less who their leaders lie next to in bed."
Though such social developments might take a back seat to the deep economic crisis--which has necessitated billions of dollars in aid to the country--the new PM represents a double breakthrough for Iceland: until now, the highest a woman had risen in the government was to the post of president, which Vigd?s Finnbogad?ttir held for 16 years, from 1980 until 1996.
A Jan. 30 profile of Sigurdardottir in the U.K. newspaper The Guardian sketched out the freshly minted national leader's life and career.
Even during her time as a flight attendant, Sigurdardottir was active in politics, heading up a union. At the time, she was also the wife of a banker, with whom she had two sons.
Since then, Sigurdardottir, who was first elected as a Minister of Parliament in 1978, has served as an MP longer than any of her former peers in Parliament.
Sigurdardottir has won the respect of her fellow politicians, the article noted, with Jon Baldvin Hannibalsson, who has served Iceland as a foreign minister, a finance minister, and an ambassador, quoted as saying, "She has credible compassion with those less well off and a willingness to improve their lot."
Indeed, Sigurdardottir has made a name for herself in championing the country's marginalized citizens.
On a separate occasion, Hannibalsson offered additional insight into Sigurdardottir, saying, "She is a loner, focused but narrow minded."
That specificity of vision has paid off; even when Sigurdardottir lost a race to become the leader of the Social Democratic Party (now the Social Democratic Alliance Party), she was unbowed, declaring, "My time will come!"
That slogan was adopted by everyday Icelanders, and now it has proved prophetic.
The article quoted a waitress, Jenny Hauksdottir, of Reykjavik, who said, "A customer brought me a T-shirt tonight with the caption: 'My time has come'.
"He felt we have both been around for a long time," quipped Hauksdottir.
Business proprietor Erna Kaaber said, "She's a very nice woman. Fair and hardworking.
"She's one of us."
Such a declaration might not have been heard about a high-profile lesbian at the start of Sigurdardottir's career, when GLBT Icelanders generally kept quiet.
But times have changed. The Guardian article noted that Iceland's GLBT equality organization Samtokin 78--a shorter name for the group, which is officially known as the National Organization of Lesbians and Gay Men in Iceland--was formed the same year that the new Prime Minister entered public life as an MP.
At that time, Icelandic society was so hostile to gays and lesbians that many simply emigrated. Samtokin 78 founder H?rdur Torfason, an openly gay singer-songwriter, was met with such antipathy when he came out in 1975 that he spent twenty years in Copenhagen, in what he later characterized as a kind of exile, before returning to his home country, where he has become something of a hero for his outspoken critiques of Iceland's outgoing government.
Indeed, the widespread anger and protests that Torfason has been in the midst of have mounted to such a degree over the past four months that they are credited with playing a significant role in the ending of the outgoing government.
For her part, Sigurdardottir has moved along also, coming out and, later, marrying her wife, Jonina Leosdottir, in 2002; civil partnerships for gay and lesbian families has been a matter of national law in Iceland since 1996, the Guardian article said.
Even Sigurdardottir's detractors have focused on ideological issues, rather than the new PM's personal life.
Said Geir Haarde, who vacated the post of Prime Minister on Jan. 26, "Johanna is a very good woman--but she likes public spending, she is a tax raiser."