“I’m not just a housewife, I’m a very good housewife” : Intergenerational Narratives of Labour Amongst Icelandic Women
There is a limit to what one can uncover in four interviews. Upholding the principle of academic caution, there is very little I can say regarding the larger intergenerational meaning of the Icelandic women’s struggle. What I can do, however, is pass on the words of two incredibly unique and wonderful women (Augusta and Sigga) who paved the way for my modern understanding and experience of freedom. Augusta, in her 70s is the wife of a farmer, or as she wants the world to know, is a farmer herself — and has for many years been active in campaigning for the local and national emancipatory freedoms of women. Sigga, in her 90s, was the wife of a fisherman that has a life enmeshed in the community, and is now a grandmother to a beautiful and growing family. I am indebted to these women for taking the time to explain to me some of the conditions that shaped their lives.
The Icelandic Women’s Day Off was in part a small act of defiance and reflection — largely blown up in significance by the passage of time. According to both of these women, the day did not accomplish much. It allowed women to gather together, to discuss, to experience a small taste of freedom from domestic responsibility. But it was a concession in many respects. Driven by more radical groups such as the Red Stockings, this idea came forth as a wider confrontation with the structural inequalities that impose themselves upon gender. However, in order to be palatable and relevant to the majority, it had to be tailored to the interests of the time.
Augusta, a local activist leader at the time, believed its greatest impact was its ability to get the country to think. However, she stated that change did not come till later, almost a year in fact. Sigga felt differently. While she saw the value of the Day Off, and attended herself — she, to this day, does not see much in terms of tangible change. For her, the advent of change came with the technological revolution of domestic labour — in her case the dishwasher and laundry machine.
Sigga’s husband was a fisherman. He partook in a dangerous job that took him far from home for long periods of time The children and house were hers to look after and the division of labour for her, was not a question. Rather, the biological nature of difference required her to be home with her children, as in her words, her husband could not feed babies. Therefore, above societal value of housework, what mattered to her was simply the reduction of time required to complete what she felt was her role.
What we find from this analysis, and from conversation with Augusta — is that time and labour were some of the most contentious issues. Augusta used to count the hours she spent in the house and those that she did running her ‘husband’s farm’. Easily, she doubled the men’s total work time. The primary issue was not gender roles, or responsibilities in the home — it was value for labour. The amount of time it took from an individual to run a society. When asked blatantly, both women believed in traditional gender roles — and the validity and necessity of housewives. To them, the different chores that were delegated within the house were a product of conversation and negotiation between husband and wife — not under the purview of government legislation or structural constraints.
Augusta explained, “I always wanted people to know I am a farmer just like my husband. I’m not just the housewife. I am a very good housewife I tell you. I cook like hell — and my husband does nothing. But it is not my job to be a housewife. I am a housewife for more than 100% of the time. I am a retired farmer, but i am a housewife forever I think. It’s not a choice.”
It is here that we find the greatest amount of generational division. The methodology that placed Freyja (Interview #1) as the interviewer of these women in some ways resulted in greater insight than if I had conducted the interview myself. Her numerous unscripted questions on why women could not be fishermen, why they must all be housewives, and why the responsibility in the home is the women’s burden highlights the shift in ‘feminist consciousness’ and the presiding belief of the times.
But where would we be without these women, even though we find ourselves diverging from the convictions that brought us here? Augusta reminds us that our generation does not know the past as well as we think. She thinks that young people take their freedom for granted as it is born with them (depending on where you are born). There is an obligation to learn our history, and understand the trends and struggles that have allowed us to reflect on what it means to be a woman. Yet at the same time, she revels in the bravery of the #MeToo movement — claiming that many women of her age have come to her discussing the revelations that this new public discussion is bringing to their own lives. These new tools have helped them understand the violence that they experienced and normalised — bringing out another layer of conversation that I have not yet found online. She claims that they do not “take to yelling on Facebook” but in their own way, find a deeper meaning of the society that they inherited through the adoption of the denormalisation of sexual aggression.
There are many further lines of analysis that I could trace from this small handful of interviews — but what I find perhaps most interesting is the unexcavated value in intergenerational learning. It is very likely that the answers to some of my most challenging questions will not be found online, despite the unending amount of research and dialogue that occurs in this space. We may need new conversations that juxtapose the new and the old, and seek to draw out threads of connection, breakage, and continuation that illuminate new avenues for meaningful rumination.
