Secrets of the Sprakkar: Iceland’s Extraordinary Women and How They Are Changing the World, by Eliza Reid. This book was a relatively light and easy read, in large part because it was hopeful about gender equality. Written in 2020 and released in 2022, the book covers a wide variety of topics around gender equality in Iceland, where the author was First Lady from 2016 to 2024.
Reid structures the book around “sprakkar” or extraordinary Icelandic women: mythical, historical, and women Reid knows from her time in Iceland. As an immigrant, she covers both good and bad points about Iceland’s small population (e.g., it turns like a speedboat, but everyone is related to everyone, which can lead to cronyism and nepotism and limited opportunities for immigrants and outsiders). It struck me that the modern women she interviewed were often ordinary but interesting: almost any woman in public life can be a sprakkar if you focus on her good works.
While the book is encouraging about Icelandic and European gender equality, it’s depressing to consider it in light of gender disparity in the US. Icelanders consider gender equity a moral right, where here we’re fighting a rearguard action against people who consider patriarchal hierarchy desirable and correct. Gestures and actions that seem simple in the Icelandic context would be highly controversial here. Certainly no recent American First Lady could write a book on extraordinary American women. While she might have connections to powerful businesswomen, celebrities, and sports heroines, the approach she would take to interviewing them would necessarily be different.
At the same time, Reid is aware of her own privilege and the downsides of Iceland for immigrant women, particularly women of color. Reid’s interviews with fellow immigrants bring these problems into focus, including spousal abuse in her own circles. And her chapter discussing Iceland’s work toward supporting women refugees was distressing to read.
The book answers questions I didn’t know I had and raises questions I couldn’t expect it to answer. The differences in size and culture between the US and Iceland mean their answers can’t transfer here, but they suggest how American institutions could support women and gender equity if they wanted. It would be inspiring if we hadn’t seen in recent weeks that so many American institutions neither care about nor want diversity, equity, and inclusion.