Icelandic first lady Eliza Reid grew up in Canada. That outsider’s view informs her new book ‘Secrets of the Sprakkar’

Per capita.

That phrase is a bit of, if not a standing joke, then a refrain, throughout “Secrets of the Sprakkar,” the new book by Iceland’s first lady, Eliza Reid.

If, for example, you want to measure which country has been at the top of the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report for the last 12 years — a report which measures closing the equality gap between men and women — it’s Iceland. Per capita. With a population of around 360,000, Iceland has about as many people as Ottawa.

If, for example, you want to measure the number of people who grew up on a certain hobby farm near Ottawa and went on to become writers, it would be 100 per cent. Per capita.

Reid grew up near Ottawa (her younger brother is Iain Reid, the author of bestselling memoirs and the novel “Foe,” now being made into a movie), and met her Icelandic husband-to-be, Gudni Johannesson, during graduate studies at Oxford University in England. They fell in love, she proposed, and they moved to Iceland so he could be closer to his young daughter. Reid picked up writing and editing work, eventually opening her own business. He was an expert on the Icelandic constitution, and when a constitutional crisis hit after the Panama Papers were released in 2016, the country realized it needed just such an expert as its president. “Our phone started ringing,” Reid writes. An election ensued and he won.

And so Reid, now married to Iceland’s president, has been the small nation’s first lady since. Her back story here is important because it speaks to how she sees things.

“We in Iceland are very proud of our achievements, but it’s not something the wider world knows,” Reid says.

“Because I’m born and raised in Canada, in another country, I see some of the things about Iceland with different eyes. I can identify some of the areas that really are special or unique, and yet also can be used elsewhere as inspiration.”

Those areas include gender rights, stigma-free sexuality, women in the workplace, universal child care, parental leave, LGBTQ+ rights.

But, when she first moved there in 2003, she knew little more than its capital, Reykjavik. By the end of that first decade of the century, it was better known internationally as having had a spectacular meltdown of the banking system in 2008, and a 2010 volcanic eruption that grounded planes across Europe. During those years, she and Gudnid had four children, she freelanced and then started her own business. She also started up the Iceland Writers Retreat.

So why did she choose now to write her own book?

“Pragmatism is the most honest answer,” she says on a Zoom call from her bright-yellow painted office in Reykjavik. Once COVID hit, as First Lady there were far fewer activities. The Writers’ Retreat was postponed. “The pace of life changed,” she says. And all of a sudden she had more time to think, more quiet moments.

During those moments she contemplated how Iceland is the world’s best country for women — per capita, of course. She quickly adds that “world’s best doesn’t mean perfect.” Around this time, in April 2020, it was the 90th birthday of former Icelandic President Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the world’s first democratically elected female head of state. The birthday celebrations were subdued, but that didn’t mean Iceland and its achievements couldn’t be celebrated.

It seemed the right time, and Reid thought her perspective as an immigrant would help.

***

This is, on one level, a deeply personal story. Reid starts the book with her own relationship — with her husband and with the country — and her adjustment to life as an immigrant. She had four children in six years — a feat partly possible by the generous parental leave provided both her and her husband, and for the nearby and affordable child care. These personal stories gave her a way of getting into the political.

“It’s funny because I think a lot of people think at first “where will this sit on a bookstore (shelf?),” she laughs. “Is it a memoir? A current affairs book? It’s a mishmash of both.”

It also makes her story relatable to a wide range of women, she thinks, making it something of an everywoman’s tale.

“A great many people are married to people who are better known than them and therefore in many ways become known as somebody’s spouse,” she says. Although it’s not often one becomes First Lady. The potential pitfalls are numerous — how, exactly, is one supposed to dress for a state visit with the Swedish royals? But, also, how do you play such a role in a country you weren’t born in? While Reid’s voice is engaging and interesting, and she peppers the story with her own discoveries of how the country and the idea of gender equality worked, she needed more.

“My story is my own story; it can’t explain gender equality and it can’t paint a portrait of a country without hearing other people’s voices. And so I knew that I would always want to incorporate many stories into this book,” says Reid.

Early on in the book she talks about how, in Iceland, the idea of gender equality is beyond arguing about — it’s not whether it’s desirable, but how do you achieve it. Reframing the question changes the focus.

And so the book also covers the breadth of experience women have. It was an approach Reid used when choosing the women to profile in the book.

In one chapter, she interviews a woman who’s a shipping boat captain. In another she talks about the Icelandic sagas and legendary women such as Hallgerdur Long-Legs and Olaf the Rich. She also explores how, in such a small country, gender equality is pragmatic. “Our island’s isolation and our natural surroundings, often perilous to this day, dictate that all human resources be used to their full potential,” she writes.

***

The word sprakkar, meaning extraordinary women, is not a well-known one in Iceland, so when she discovered it, Reid was delighted. She knew she wanted to use an Iceland word in the title “one that English speakers could say and didn’t look too intimidating.”

When the book came out in Icelandic in November, she says, people were intrigued.

“There’s a pride in the Icelandic language here and in maintaining the language and people thought, oh, this is another word that we can start using,” she says.

Language, of course, plays a role in the way any of us see ourselves, but also how our roles are viewed in society.

“If you think of all the words to describe women, now, in English, how many of them are positive?” she asks. They objectify or sexualize or diminish. She says she uses her own example of being First Lady and the expectations that brings with it (fully acknowledge “I’m in an incredibly privileged position.”)

She calls it death by a thousand paper cuts, “the culling of one’s identity … there are so many things in society that just teach women to be seen and not heard and only to be seen in certain ways.”

Which brings us back to gender equality.

“To me, gender equality isn’t a political issue. It’s a human rights issue. And absolutely, it helps to have legislation, for example. But in our everyday lives we can be behaving and acting and elevating others with those gender equality glasses on.

“We know that gender equality benefits people of all genders, this isn’t a zero sum game, where if we’re elevating women, somehow men and non binary people go down. This is not, that’s not how it works. It just brings love raises the whole playing field for everybody.”

Whether you’re measuring per capita or not.