Gender equality in politics: interview with Sóley Tómasdóttir
Photo: Mandana Emad
Translation: Lilja Ragnheiður Einarsdóttir
Sóley Tómasdóttir, pedagogist, gender and diversity educator and feminist, is the former leader of the Left-Green Movement and also served as the president of the city council. She has been a prominent figure in public discourses on equality and feminism for decades but believes that politicians still have a long way to go before truly tackling gender-based violence and implementing feminist policies in politics.
Sóley has often heard that she only cares about equal rights affairs, to the exclusion of all other things even though many things matter besides gender equality, but she has never really been able to curb her passion for the subject. How has she sustained this commitment?
I think I was ten years old when I walked into Hótel Vík and registered to be part of The Women’s List which existed back then. Later The Women’s List split into the Left-Green Movement and the Social Democratic Alliance, making me a political orphan.
After establishing the Icelandic feminist society in the early 2000s, Sóley decided to give politics a try again and decided that the Left-Green party had the most promise to enact real change in matters of gender equality.
They were glad to have a woman on board with such a clear and sharp vision for gender equality but even so, since the very beginning people have tried to have me adopt more moderate positions. If I were to become a successful politician I would have to speak on a spectrum of important matters; energy, economy and education, and not just pontificate about a fringe subject like equal rights. Throughout my career as a politician I was continually told to broaden my focus.
Meanwhile I was one of few within the party that attempted to have politicians broaden their own views, and truly put equality on the agenda but it was always an uphill struggle. People listened but only paid lip service to the cause, mentioning the importance of equal rights at the end of their speeches while devoting the lions’ share of their effort to the “main topics” at hand. I always felt there was a lack of sincerity and conviction which has not diminished significantly over time in politics. I feel like I am often gaslighted when trying to bring up equality, always being told to sit back and wait our turn, since other things are more important and take precedence. I felt that my role within the Left-Green party was to be the person to talk about equality, so the others could avoid the subject but still retain popular support. I think there remains a substantial fear of speaking on the unpopular topic that is feminism since we clearly see the toxic avalanche of pushback that women are met with on the internet when they speak up.
We discussed the turning point that led to the election of 2017, when it was discovered that the father of the prime minister at the time, Bjarni Benediktsson, had secretly been involved in the ‘restoration of honour’ of a convicted sexual abuser, parliament was disbanded and an election called. An upheaval took place on social media in the wake of these events. It was pushed into motion by survivors and activists who could no longer be silent about the ugly patriarchal system that protects abusers and ignores victims. Under the hashtag #höfumhátt people - in a large majority women - shared their stories of surving sexual abuse.
This was an immense political scandal but then the election campaign started which had nothing to do with these matters - nothing to be fixed, nothing in our culture or procedures which needed to change, and politicians kept to their conventional tasks. Today we stand in the wake of yet another wave of #metoo outcry, an enormous undertaking where we are once again opening old wounds. Survivors and activists have shown indefatigable selflessness and energy in raising awareness about how extensive and systematic the problem is - meanwhile politicians talk about the economy!
Since 2015 wave after wave of stories of sexual abuse have gained traction on social media under various hashtags. #konurtala (#womenspeak). #þöggun (#suppression). #metoo. #höfumhátt (#letsbeloud). #freethenipple. We have seen how women in parliament are marginalised and how they are spoken about privately. Despite the awakening which is certainly happening, it has only yielded a few short sentences at the tail ends of speeches which talk of task forces, procedures and the importance of gender equality without going into substantive detail.
Even when equal rights make it into the political debate, like in the party leader debate in Kastljós the other night where Katrín Jakobsdóttir swore in her final speech that she would speak on equality in every programme she attended, these matters are barely discussed. She did not explain what her aims were or what she expected to achieve and I think it is emblematic of the position we are in - people have realised that these subjects need to be mentioned but no solutions are affirmed or even discussed.
Sóley wants more sharp dialogue from parliamentarians and other politicians to raise awareness of gender-based violence exemplified by the memorable, feminist speech by Andrés Ingi, who is now in the 2nd seat for the Reykjavík North electoral disctrict for the Pirate Party, which he gave in the wake of the #freethenipple movement.
Such speeches usually come from fringe politicians and this is the topic they have decided to take on this time. If a revolution of this sort had happened around economic matters, or a change in fishing quota, every politician would have spoken in this fashion. But Andrés was alone at that point in time, because the subject of equality never makes it into the main discourse. I think politicians know that by talking about the issues they not only have to meet the expectations of feminists but also contend with the disapproval of those who do not understand feminism and its importance which is why they weigh their options - will they risk gaining the support of feminists at the cost of losing votes as a result? I think it shows an incredible level of cowardice and proves that their commitment to the goal is not authentic. If one is not ready to risk ticking off old fashioned voters then it is not possible to be an agent of change.
Continued discourse and pressure is needed to uproot the ingrained ideologies centered around masculinity and to make sure that the subject of gender equality is not pushed to the sidelines in Icelandic politics. What we need is pressure from the community, discussion in the media, and real action from political parties to fight gender-based violence. We must demand principles of equality and feminism in politics. Let’s keep listening to survivors. Let’s keep being loud.