Erla Hulda Halldórsdóttir & Ragnheiður Kristjánsdóttir: A Century of Working Women in Iceland


Lecture | 18 May 2021 14.00-14.45

Kristín Svava Tómasdóttir, Erla Hulda Halldórsdóttir, Ragnheiður Kristjánsdóttir are authors standing in a stair. They are authors of the book "A Century of Women Voters".
Fr left: Kristín Svava Tómasdóttir, Erla Hulda Halldórsdóttir, Ragnheiður Kristjánsdóttir.

Welcome to a Nordic Labour History Network webinar

Abstract: Our talk will be based on our newly published and award-winning book, A Century of Women Voters (co-authors, Kristín Svava Tómasdóttir and Þorgerður H Þorvaldsdóttir). The book discusses the life and political environment of Icelandic female voters. It tells the story of how women carved out a space for themselves to make, create, and determine the course of their own lives and that of society as a whole, while at the same time overcoming the obstacles they found at every turn.

The narrative revolves around the question of when women became fully fledged citizens, and it is structured around parliamentary elections.

We chose one election year for each decade, from 1916, the first elections after women won the right to vote, to 2017. By focusing on eleven election years we get cross-section of the political history of women over the one hundred years of women‘s suffrage in Iceland, as well as a narrative of progression, of what changed and how. In our talk we shall be focusing on the politics of women‘s work.

The lecturers

Erla Hulda Halldórsdóttir is professor of history at the University of Iceland. Her published works concern women’s and gender history, biography, correspondence, and historiography. She was the editor of the anthology Biography, Gender and History: Nordic Perspectives (2016). Her most recent book is Konur sem kjósa (2020), a co-authored work about the history of women voters in Iceland.

Ragnheiður Kristjánsdóttir is professor of history at the University of Iceland. She has published works on nationalism, democracy, the politics of the left, and gender. She is country editor of the Scandinavian Journal of History and her most recent book is Konur sem kjósa (2020), a co-authored work about the history of women voters in Iceland.

The seminar is free of charge but requires registration, through filling in the web form below. You will receive a zoom-link by e-mail before the seminar.

Error: Contact form not found.

See all our digital seminars.