Transcripts For CSPAN2 Eliza Reid Secrets Of The Sprakkar- Icelands Extraordinary Women And... 20220718

Of coffee house press. She writes frequently for many magazines and newspapers including the New York Times vanity fair, new York Magazine and book forum. After we hear from eliza and emily, well have an opportunity for a we wont be holding a meet and greet line afterwards, but we do have an additional signed books available for purchase. And without any further ado word presents eliza reed and emily gold. Here we go. Hi. Hi. Thank you so much for coming to greenpoint all the way from iceland you got in last night. I got in last night, so i might fall asleep halfway through this event. No offense as i know from reading your book your fan of the icelandic strong coffee. I am very much and the coffee here is not as strong. Im gonna say its better in iceland. Well, i mean, sorry guys on that note. Im im also a understanding from reading your book that ill awful lot of things are better in iceland, but i wanted to start things by asking you i which im sure people ask you a lot. You miss about living in north america. Actually, you know, i dont get asked that very much now i used to get asked that a little bit and then i would answer craft dinner, which is a little bit of a sort of lame answer. They dont know the macaroni and cheese. No, they dont answer. No. Are you gonna put some in your well here . Im on carryon only which makes me also feel a little bit special because its hard to go on a book tour and try to showcase a sunday fashion and be carry on only but thats when im trying to do. So no craft enter for me on this trip. Theres a memorable anecdote in your book where you were being followed by a lot of paparazzi on its state visit to im sweden sweden that it knew it was a nordic country. Yeah, and the press made it made a big curve fluffle of you losing one of your earrings. Are you wearing a earrings made by an icelandic designer tonight . I am and also because i so i dont have pierced ears because my mom would never let me get pierced ears. And is she still . Enforcing that. Yeah, thats a thats an excellent question. She so she wouldnt let me get pierced steers until i was 16 and then by the time i was 16, i kind of thought it was cool that i was the only person who didnt have pierced ears, but the problem reemerged when i became first lady, then people really felt like i ought to have pierced ears if i was going to really be a sort of fashion icon which i never really thought i would be so no, i still dont have pierced ears. And so when i have earrings like these icelandic earrings the showcase iconic lava stones, they are sort of those Victorian Era screw in earrings and therefore when we were on the state visit to sweden, and and were being chilled by paparazzi. It wasnt that unlikely that maybe an earring would fall out because theyre not, you know, theyre not pierced ears and they werent diamond earrings or anything, but they were bored icelandic design. I think if i recall and so i was with the queen of sweden and we had gotten out of car and i noticed that they were missing and i said to the queen have you seen my earring and she hadnt and there was obviously security people and all kinds of people around us and they hadnt seen it. And so i just thought well thats thats the end of that and then the next thing i know that evening im getting changed and theres like a headline in the swedish tabloid expression that there was chaos at the kings lunch because the first ladys earring has disappeared and they had a closeup photo of me before early in the day when im wearing the earring and then later when im not wearing the earring to find out you know when it might have gone missing. That definitely sounds like a moment among many moments that you describe in this very very entertaining book. That probably would have been hard for you to imagine being part of your life as a younger person. I mean, this is true state visits heads. Yeah. Yeah having to do you see how that rolls off my tongue. Oh, i just asked the queen how if shed seen my earring, you know, because thats what you ask all the time, right . Yes. Yeah, no, it was a it was one of you know a thousand such surreal moments. I maybe ill save the best ones from for a memoir memoir and this one sort of features a lot of stories, but it has a few personal anecdotes woven throughout. I mean i have to say im really looking forward to that book because those personally anecdotes were really some of my favorite parts of the book because they i think because of the way that they illuminated all the things about iceland that are so markedly different from our lives here it i think with the way that you before your husband became the president of iceland experience just the sort of mundane reality of being a working parent. So you have four children and a stepdaughter and its and an older stepdaughter and in america that is, you know, not unheard of um, certainly many people have many many children, but the way that you described your decision to like reproduce a lot youre sort of like like why not there werent a lot of structure here. Well, i think you know what ive said often an interviews that i pray. Im almost positive. I wouldnt have had four children if i had lived in canada because we couldnt have afforded it. I think many people. Work, you know as a history lecturer, theres two seats right here. Dont be shy who work as you know a history lecturer and a freelance writer who can afford to be working fulltime in those jobs and have four children in child care, you know, its just not not that possible so that you know, thats something that i noticed early on in iceland. Not not only that its a familyfriendly society in which people you know children are seen as a blessing rather than a burden but but that its its something where society kind of reinforces reinforces that as well with policies. Well, can you go into the policy a little bit more that that supported . All the child having its out. My husbands also catholic. I dont know if thats i i also really like the story about your motherinlaw wondering whether you guys would move closer to home which home in that case like three miles away. Yeah. Yeah, when so when we first moved to ice and we met in graduate school. In england and lived there for a number of years and then we moved to iceland and i remember saying to my husband, you know, okay. Well, i you know obviously, you know, this this happens youre gonna move to one country or another country when youve met sort of in a third place. He had this daughter from his first marriage and obviously if we wanted to be together we were going to live in iceland so we never had to kind of do a pro and cons list of various countries, and i said, all right, you know, no problem. Well live in ice, but i really want to live in reykjavik in the capital and i want to live downtown because its a small country. Its a small population and and that means i can walk everywhere i can get to know everything and and im not you know out in the suburbs and he grew up in a in a suburb of reykjavik, and i remember as we rented this apartment right by right downtown. And my motherinlaw was we didnt have a car anything was driving me back one day and she said, you know, so im really glad that you guys have moved in iceland and i i really understand why its important for you to live centrally while you while you adapt and she said but im hoping that once youre settled youll think about moving closer to home and shes like five kilometers away like my husband would jog there on the weekends to go and see her. And and but no we were in a different we were in a different community. So theres kind of different judgments of all of that. And yeah, of the many things that struck me about the sort of i you know, i dont want to use words like utopian or idyllic because obviously every country has its challenges and struggles and nowhere is perfect. But i got to say when i was as i was reading your description of being on Maternity Leave as was paid. Three months of paid Maternity Leave for each parent. And then a shared. Yeah additional three months for the parents to divide as they saw fit in addition to the older children being in the child care that is heavily subsidized, you know to us it would seem next thing to free really like compared. I think yeah 25 i think i paid i mean at the time the the icelandic krona, the currency was was very weak against the dollar so obviously this fluctuates but when we had our oldest child who was in the first grade, so he went to school until at 1 30 in the afternoon, and then he had this after School Program that you paid for that gave him a snack and yeah the after School Program i had two children who were then in fulltime whats called play school that sort of pre age when you start which is from about 8 in the morning till 4 in the afternoon with a hot lunch and snacks and then my youngest daughter who was one was at this child minder, which is a licensed caregiver who looks after up to five children in their home and provides meals and we paid 500 a month for that total. Again, you know like its up or down and currency but to give you an i might start crying. Yeah, we pay higher taxes like, you know, this this gets paid for somewhere and and they have these discounts for taxes are pretty high actually in new york. Yeah, so but thats you know, it obviously comes from somewhere and thats something that i try to illustrate a little bit in the book is i suppose what i wanted to do is is i didnt want to write a book that that says this is what we do in iceland and icelands great for women. This is what you guys need to do an an x or y country. I dont think that its my place to do that and and its not the kind of book that i wanted to write. What i wanted to do is write really sort of paint a portrait of a country. I sort of said write a love story to the country that i chose as my adopted home. And paint a portrait of country where i can tell the stories of all sorts of different women who live there to share their experiences as women in the worlds best country for women quote unquote whether they are mothers or politicians or entrepreneurs or or writers or musicians or sex therapists or whatever theyre doing and and and so obviously policies like heavily subsidized childcare like state paid parental leave play into this and they are very important. But i hope to that a lot of the stories, you know in an individual level also inspire people, you know in their everyday lives whether or not they live in places where those policies exist. Well, yeah, because that as you write in the book, its not its not the whole picture. There are a lot of theres theres the sort of a symphony of cultural factors that come together to create all the things that make iceland so a salubrious for its citizens who arent who arent men in addition to all the men they do. Okay, frankly, you know. Yeah, i mean, whats you you know, whats good for . Right one human is good for all humans. And you know, i think that thats the key thing. I think that one of the big differentiators is that, you know broadly speaking as a society and and probably not everyone would agree with me, but i think largely speaking in ice and weve kind of passed the Tipping Point of debating whether or not trying to work towards gender quality is an important objective, but how were going to get there and and really understanding this sense that working towards greater gender equality is something that benefits people of all genders. It isnt something that benefits one group of people versus another. Its not a zero sum game. Yeah, so in america, were so far from that and seemingly getting further away from it by the day actually in terms of our both our culture and our public policy. If theres one takeaway for americans who are reading your book other than it would be great to take a vacation in iceland and spend as much time hanging out in a geothermal hot tub as possible. What is there . Is there something that you feel like is actionable from your experience . I think i think one of the Key Takeaways is that well societal structures really help. Of course that we as individuals can all make a difference in our lives and in many senses, its those small. Almost infantisable things that add up to a big thing and that were you know, we are all role models in some sense and and and and partially that thread goes throughout the book just from this idea that you know, i grew up in a farm in canada and all of a sudden i was married to a head of state and and what did i want to do with that opportunity and this idea that we can either be a positive influence or a negative influence within our our circles and our communities and i think that that is a message that anybody can take with them wherever they are and when we look at that message with through the lens of gender equality or through the lens of equitability overall. I i think that this is something you know where we can keep in mind, you know, my son was teasing me just the other day. I was driving him to his friends house. We had one of these spotify playlists on you know, summer hits or whatever it is. And i said its been four songs in a row that are by men. My son was like, oh mom again. Are you counting . And i said, well, its not that it really matters, but someone has created a playlist somewhere and i he got a whole lecture believe me all the way to his friends and i said somewhere someone has created playlist somewhere without deliberately trying to do anything and just thinking of the fun songs and i can almost promise you that that playlist is completely dominated by male singers without and i said, its not that somebody said, haha. Were gonna silence women by not putting women in this and that its a conscious decision, but we just dont think about it women dont think about it when were when were doing Different Things and were deciding on team members and were featuring things and if we dont wear some sort of equity equitability glasses all the time. Its not going to happen. And so if maybe theres something that people can take away from the book. Its fully kind of live our lives with this idea of are we are we hearing enough diversity in our conversations and in our voices and inner choices and what were doing because we know that the greater diversity that we have the Better Things are in, you know in so many ways. So one of your lenses on this situation that i think was so fat whats make what makes this book so fascinating, is that your experience in iceland is the experience of an immigrant . And very recent history iceland has changed a lot in terms of its population and and just sort of understanding how to welcome immigrants can you tell me more about because one of the i think one of the things that i was really struck by was that even as recently as 10 years before you . Moved there people who immigrated to iceland were required to choose an icelandic name. Thats true. Did you have thoughts about what your icelandic name would have wouldve just maybe yeah, but my name for that very reason because the or zed as i would say as a canadian is is not in the icelandic alphabet. So my name was banned one year. And so every year this is a complete tangent, but well go into it. So people children born to icelandic parents have to give their children and approved name and of all this list of isonic names the idea is you know, i think its absurd, but anyway, the idea is to you know, maintain the the sort of my cyclic language. Were you exempt from that . Yes, because i have foreign origin. So our children actually have sort of one. They have to have one ice on your name because they have one isonic parents. So our children have a middle name. Thats icelandic and a foreign first name and every year people apply, you know for new names and so sometimes if it fits the icelandic grammar rules with declensions, theyll add they always add some new names and then theyll say, you know x name was people applied for it. And we said no way you cant do it. So when youre my name eliza was put on someone applied for and they said no you cant do it because its spelled with it. And and i remember remember i was i had that look on my place and this is years. This is like 2004 2005 and i always remember because it really epitomized iceland to me in some senses. My husband was telling me this and his brother at the time they and his wife were expecting a child and i remember saying to my husband. Are you telling me that you know, lets Say Something happened to me tomorrow and i died or something and your brother wanted to name their daughter after me. They wouldnt be allowed to because its not allowed and my husband and his like dry sunday. Sort of sense of humor said yes, that is true. And then he paused for a beat and he said but i work across the hall from the chair of the naming committee. So i would talk to him and we would work it all out. And that really summarized iceland to me that like theres a lot of kind of obscure rules, but Everybody Knows somebody and then you figured all that somehow. Also that thats a job that someone has i know i know i think its like an extra job. We were a lot of hats in iceland. So but yeah, theres a naming committee. And yeah and ahead of it and its probably your husbands thirty. Yes. Yeah. But but okay, so going back to sorry my original point of diversion about about how there are now many People Living in iceland from countries all world and the chapter of your book where you talk about those challenges is really fascinating because its sort of a real swerve from you know the sort of more. Utopia and idyllic type of situation what are some of the the challenges that iceland is facing on that front . I really that was obviously capturing the sort of immigrant experience was incredibly important to me as an immigrant to iceland and and i think for readers abroad as well and i and i think actually for many people in iceland people dont realize exactly how multicultural the country is or has become recently. We have more people born abroad living in iceland than senior citizens. And the population its 15. 5 as i recall the People Living in iceland are born in another country and the us that figures 10 now obviously in the us theres a lumber people who are maybe second or Third Generation immigrants, whereas that its kind of all recent in iceland, but that shows you that theres a huge increase in in foreignborn people in the country adding a tremendous diversity to the society, which i think is a really good thing. But if you look at the fact that in the mid 90s, it was around 1 of the country is foreign born. Thats also a huge shift in a relatively short period of time and while i think and believe that the country is a whole thinks that this development is positive and thinks that that is a good thing and we need people contributing to the economy and and the skills and the diversity of that brings it also brings additional challenges. So in my chapter on immigration, i guess i also first and foremost say that you know, you cant one persons immigrant story is completely different from somebody elses story. And and so its you cant theres no cookie cutter immigrant and theres no cookie cutter challenge or solution to those issues as an immigrant, but i tried to profile three different women there who maybe had different stories than my story which i also talked about. Um to highlight really different issues. So one was a woman from mexico who met her husband online who was a farmer who lives in the northeast of the country in a village of 600 people and its a very remote part of the country. So iceland is an island, you know, that that touches the Arctic Circle. Its arguably kind of remote to begin with. The population is 360,000 people on this island in the north atlantic. So if you drive for eight hours around to the other side of the country and then you drive off the main highway for another two hours then you get to this town of 600 people. And she comes from a city in mexico. Its you know, well over a Million People of course, and so she and and shes this wonderful woman that ive met a long time ago. And of course, you know strangely enough, theres people from 20 countries living in this town because theres people whove come in to work in the fish factories in different community. So in many senses, it is very it is multicultural, you know, nobody has anything locked your cars never locked. Im sure you people just keep their keys in their car that your house is never locked kids play everywhere the heirs incredibly clean, you know, theres virtually theres a lot of advantages to living there. But as you can imagine theres a lot of challenges and and i thought she she captured really well different issues for immigrants in remoter parts of the country then maybe you would get in the capital. Then i spoke with a friend of mine called claudia who is from jamaica originally who is the first woman of foreign origin in iceland to get a license to practice law, which is pretty hard to do if you can imagine how good, you have to be at the icelandic language to to acquire the skills necessary to be a lawyer. So shes pretty kick to put it. To put it nicely and she you know, she spoke about her experience as an immigrant of color in the country because of course her experience is different than say my experience and this has been a lot in the news in iceland recently as well and there an excellent article. That i will crib from briefly here or an oped where someone said i think that people in iceland tend to think that racism is when you speak badly of somebody else or treat them badly because of their race, but dont realize that the sort of microaggressions that exist is also a form of racism and so she tells these stories where people would meet her and say to her this woman from jamaica. I just want you to know youre not the first black person ive ever met. I will tell you about the time when i met the first black person ive ever seen and and you know, she doesnt know. What to say to this of course and people think that theyre trying to be you know the insurance how worldly they are because i dont know theres a and and so and and so that is a that is a something i think that as a society in iceland. We need to deal with lot is is the sort of ingrained prejudice that has existed in the society that people dont even realize is racism yet that people need to look at and the third story that i talk about is a woman who i call rose whos from england who ended up living for several months at the womens shelter in iceland. I really wanted to cover the issue of Domestic Violence and genderbased violence in iceland because we have those cases as well and unless you can work to eradicate that youre not going to have gender equality. But what i wanted to do, i really had a hard time finding where i would put that story because women of foreign origin are disproportionately represented at the womens shelter. So in some senses are seen you know, yeah, theyre much more likely to be there both because maybe being unaware of their rights but also because they have less of a support network themselves when theyre at home, but what i wanted to kind of do is confound what peoples images might be of someone who goes there. So this is a, you know, a very educated middle class woman from england who because we know that it can happen to anybody. And she said that icelands. Sort of straight sort of push for gender equality actually worked against her in this situation, which surprised me saying that when she was arguing for custody, of course the default in iceland is that you have joint custody afterwards and therefore unless she could take her ex partner to court and prove the abuse and we know how difficult that is. He was entitled to live in the house until he wanted to leave and he was entitled to you know, half of shared custody arrangements and she even though people wanted to help her she felt that the sort of legal system was really constricting in that situation. And thats fascinating. I also was i mean, im just revealing my my ignorance about iceland could feel several books, but i was kind of stunned to learn from your book that iceland used to be in very recent memory much more culturally isolated than it is now the the fact that i latched on to that in the 80s. There was no tv on thursdays and also not for the entire month of july because in july you should be outside Summer Holidays enjoying the sunshine while the sun is shining. Yes, almost 24 hours a day, but but that has all so changed more recently. Do you think that young younger people who live in iceland have more recently started to want to like emigrate even temporarily to sort of like experience the larger world that everyone is now more yeah familiar with i think actually this is something i really like about iceland is that its always struck me as want as not an insular country, even though its geographically isolated and in many senses historically has been two degrees sort of ethnically isolated. I guess if you could put it that way. A lot of people go abroad for a while. They go abroad to study and something brings them home, which i think is nice so many people even for you know, five 10 15 years. Thats a long time to put down roots in another country and then they think my kids are starting high school. I want them to go nice on a high School Moving home. Look at the same job and they just do it and they works out somehow. And i think that thats quite admirable that theres something that always brings people back, you know, actually the icelandic word for stupid hame squish is literally whos never left home. Oh. So i think its its seen as a good thing to have to have gone abroad and now its a, you know, incredibly technologically connected society. Its got the highest Internet Usage rate in the world. I think not just per capita. Yeah. We love per capita statistics. Theres a lot of those in the book we cant and you know, its something that i write about this too. Its this sort of small nation complex insecurity that i also feel as a canadian so i sort of have a double dose of it. And so i have the real affection for that as well. I couldnt help like we were looking up at the books now. I was like, oh that authors canadian. Oh that authors canadian. Yeah, and i cant not do it. Im sorry, you know, im sorry. Thats also canadian. I have to say the thing thats really appealing to tourists about iceland is of course. Its for what . I mean, theres theres a lot thats appealing but the spectacular Natural Beauty thats like kind of unavoidable. I think i mean ive never been there, but im just, you know, extrapolating instagrammable. Yeah. Yeah the most perhaps the most instagramable of all nations just from a Natural Beauty perspective. And nature and being outdoors when its not, you know cold and dark is is a much bigger part of most peoples lives than it is in most of north america. Im getting the impression. You can tell me if im wrong about all this stuff. Do you think thats made and also the proximity to the Arctic Circle do you think thats made people more sort of . Viscerally aware of Climate Change and a way that is sort of unavoidable for people to think about. Yeah. Yeah. I mean for sure when it comes to Climate Change, i think, you know broadly speaking. Its made that the population quite adaptable and we realize that nature is boss, you know, because there might be a volcanic eruption tomorrow and then you have to deal with that or there might be an earthquake and these kind of things happen when it comes to Climate Change. Absolutely because 10 of the countries covered with glaciers and the glaciers are disappearing. So we you know can go and see that and and when i move to iceland 20 years ago or an even almost 25 years ago now the first time i visited iceland there was a glacier on the south coast that you could drive to and you would stop on the ring road this highway and and one of the sort of glacial tongues would come out quite near the highway and you go and take a picture and touch a glacier and blah blah and now you have to drive for like five or six minutes off the road and then walk to go and get to that same spot. Hmm would can you imagine any situation that could happen in your familys life . That would bring you . Back to this um, like part of the this tragic but knighted part of the world oh you mean like moving back to america . Um, sure maybe i think just because my kids are half canadian and and it would be interesting for them to experience living in that part of and i also, you know buy into this point that we should all have an experience living somewhere else that you know, we should all experience being immigrants at some point. I think it really gives us a better understanding of the world in some way. So i would absolutely think that that people and i hope my kids at some point will go and live in some other country whatever other country experience one of my kids says for sure. Theres no ways living in iceland when hes older, so i dont know. Well, you know, you dont want to be that word you said hemsgood. Yeah hames good aims could im just very impressed that you learned to icelandic as an adult also. Thats just thats another whole crazy. I wouldnt say in the past tense though because its an ongoing. Oh, so yeah continuing to learn more you could comport yourself in it like an intro and you could you could do this whole event i could yeah. Yeah grammatical mistakes. I mean its really hardly. I dont know. I mean ive been married to russian person for went a long time and i still have russian of a like not that not that bright twoyearold. So okay impressed. Its very impressive to me. The you met so many fascinating people and and described their stories in this book. I was especially taken with the jellyfish. You want to talk about the jellyfish for a little bit. Sure. Im also have just impressed that you did the thing that thing i do. Yeah, maybe we shouldnt say what that is and people will read the book. Oh, no, i dont know. I mean they already bought it. So yeah fair enough, thats good enough. Thats good enough. So the jellyfish its a is a group of women around the age of 50 and i interview or profile them in my chapter on female friendships. And they decided that they wanted to swim across the English Channel to raise money for charity. And so they trained obviously really regularly by among other things swimming in the sea in reykjavik at our geothermal beach and the sea remember reykjavik is the worlds northernmost capital city, and its cold in the north atlantic there. I will tell you and they go swimming every week. Its kind of a thing sometimes to go see swimming so in the name of research, i went seeing with them once see swimming i ran in i like deck down i ran out. Is this the part where they heed it a little bit or no we no, no, no, we didnt go in that part. Thats for wimps. No we went in the cold the real part. But only briefly yeah, i dont think i would even go in the heat aparts nice. Like honestly if you google on the on the weekend in reykjavik, it was like 15 degrees celsius. I dont know fahrenheit. Im sorry and its like a beef of there. I mean, its like they put sand on there and they heat it up and everybodys just out in bikinis and 15 whatever. It is in fahrenheit is not that hot. No, whatever it is. Its colder than it was today by a long shot 47 degrees maybe. So anyway thats hot for icelandic standards and everybodys out there. So the jellyfish wanted to just set themselves as physical challenge now, obviously the shows, you know, they are privileged people who have the time and the money to kind of devote focusing on this, but what was really important i thought to me was showcasing that they thought it was important to carve out time for themselves and set themselves a really difficult physical challenge and they said, you know, they would tell people that theyre gonna do this and immediately people said, what is your husband think of this or what are the kids say and you know this our husbands they go play golf with their friends on the weekends and everybody thinks thats just part of the guy bonding and and everybody asks us. Why are you allowed to do this . Is it selfish to want to take up, you know prioritize yourself for this project and so they really liked that they had set aside the time to do that. And i think there was one theres one footnote in the book there because so they were doing this training. And then they wanted to promote it. They wanted to obviously raise money for charities. So they were trying to get the media interested in it and they thought what we will swim over the bay in the north atlantic to from where they swim there from the beach to the president ial residence where my husband and i live which is on this peninsula just a bit outside and my husband actually to his credit does like to go see swimming sometimes and so he said he thought this was a great idea and he said they they get swim over and he would sort of, you know meet them there and you know, thered be photo up so in the photo, so the next day the newspaper the cover of the newspaper is my husband like walking out of the sea looking like hes leading out these women from the sea whove just swum over the bay, you know that he has not had to do and i make some remark in the book about my husband just like walked in and greeted them and its on the front of the paper. So i read i wrote this draft in the book. And my husband is reading the draft of the book to give me and then hes and that one section is very nice. Overall. He scrawled like across the whole page. I swam many meters out like it like give me some credit here. He didnt swim across the bay, but i think he could to give him his credit. Yeah. Poor guy. I mean with a little practice. Im sure we all could know not meme ever doing that. I dont i dont even go in the water in maine. Its like 60 in fah. I think its time to open it up to some questions. And so you guys will have a mic thats going to be passed around for questions and ill kind of i mean, you know, we we can be a little bit casual about it, but ill sort of like indicate to you that its like your time to if you want to raise your hand and a mic will come to you and accept my old friend from university whos band from asking questions. Yes. Dont ask any questions about shes known me for too long. No secret canadian passed eliza. Okay, please do wait for the meister one because we are filming this and so we want to make sure we can hear your question. Hi, i was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how iceland is different in terms of like differences in appearance standards between genders and like other things that like are definitely there in gender inequality, but are not necessarily political or economic in the same way. Great question appearances and genders, you know as a canadian where im very very casual ive often thought the people of all genders in icelander much fancier than i am. So maybe thats somewhere where i see a difference between people who are locally born and people who are immigrants. You know, youre absolutely right that you know, i my husband always likes to tell this joke story. Its this one he finds his own sexist story or not, but the and im not meaning to name drop it anyway the Crown Princess of sweden came to lunch one day and theres no other way to just say that than just saying it right so we did a photo up at the end the crown prince of sweden and my husband and i and then the photo in the newspaper Something Like Crown Princess of sweden and first lady look fabulous at this lunch. My husbands like theyre always leaving me out of the caption. Its like no, you know, theyre always leaving women at the captions, but okay. So, you know, theyre absolutely is more comments on on how women dress but i think for example now i think you would say for instance if there was a photo of my husband and i and they just talked about what i was wearing and nothing with my husband. Somebody would make a comment to that effect. So hopefully people are kind of becoming more aware of it. And then i also personally try to exploit it a little bit in that you know when i go abroad i try to wear icelandic clothes when im in iceland, i wear a lot of used clothes. I bought a lot of charity shop clothing, which i think is really important in my role to both to be sustainable and to show that and because im kind of cheap, you know, and i just show that thats good to use use clothes and so its kind of working, you know, you both try to sort of confound expectations and say it shouldnt be that important. But while i know that people are going to talk about it, i might as well do it for those purposes. Im just curious. I know this all about gender equality. Like what does it mean that iceland has gender equality and its its whatever percentage better than other places. What im trying to grasp. Yeah, what specifically makes it more generally. So when i say its you know, and i always say it with these little air quotes the worlds best country for women thats according to the World Economic forums Global Gender Gap index, which iceland has and appeared as number one on for 12 years in a row. So its not it hasnt reached a hundred on that index. Its just the highest of all the countries so it doesnt have gender quality. It is the closest towards achieving it and now, you know, im going to be in trouble for not i say the the rankings in the in the book, but they are to do with educational levels for Women Political involvement for Women Health Care outcomes for women the wage inequality roles incorporations and all that and theres different, you know, theres a global index for the economist iceland tops the Glass Ceiling index there. Theres various different indices, but the World Economic form is the is the best known one and i would say for ice on the best statistics are that we have one of the highest percentages of women in the workforce. And and very high representation of women in parliament. Its 47. 5 so its the highest in the world for a nonquota regulated country. And a close, you know narrowing of the gender pay gap all the women still earn less than men on the dollar. So those are the sort of quantifiable indicators that that were using there. I just ask one more thing. As a transplanter how how were you accepted by icelander . Because i from what i understand, you know, there are family based and a lot of people tend to know each other from you know, when they were younger and growing up and they have this circle. So, its i can imagine its hard to break into that. So i was just wondering how your experience was with that. Thats a great question. And you know, absolutely, you know, my name is not something daughter as so many icelandic womens names are and so im sure there has been some prejudice when ive been applying for a job or doing Something Else or just when people speak to me. I would say that my experience has been quite positive overall. Although there are always you know these sort of yeah microaggressions that you know, ive lived in the country for 20 years and sometimes me people who will kind of say. Wow, you do speak good icelandic as if you know, ive lived for 20 years. I havent been here a week, you know, or they say it very slowly to me. So i can understand. Um, and and theres also way when people i find this very sort of othering when then an ice under will say well dont worry about us islenders. Were such and such and so youre not youre not included in that debate that they are then right away saying well we icelanders because you are different you are not in icelander and i am an icelander in fact, and and thats really important in in my discourse. I always speak myself as icelandic in the first person and canadian and we never have to compete in sports. So its all okay. Um, and and that is very very important to me that that people abroad see that i feel icelandic and you know in my opinion if i think im icelandic then i am icelandic but thats a kind of nuance that i think is important to reinforce in society because again, i think theres these sort of microaggression statements that people dont realize when they kind of us against not even against but us and you sort of separation when it comes to serving as first lady of the country. I cant say that ive had any negative experiences. The first lady who served before me is from israel originally and so the countrys very used to seeing another immigrant first lady and i had lived in the country for a long time all our children were born in the country. I spoke the language. So when your campaigning i could Speak Campaign in icelandic and and that i think was very beneficial. And i mean i dont you know, i dont go into the comments section searching out. All the negative comments and thats a huge plus side as a person whos learned icelandic not as my native language because if youre reading in your mother tongue, you just start to read and then youve finished reading it before youre like, oh i didnt want to see that. Why did it whereas i have to make a conscious decision to read something and icelandic. And if i start to read something and i think oh this is kind of negative. Oh that looks like a bad adjective. Im not gonna Google Translate what that word means like i dont really want to know i think and so its somehow it kind of goes through this filter for me. So it really doesnt bother me, but i think i dont think that anybody i think everybody thinks its a nice thing. I think the thing that i would need to tackle if anything is this idea that some people dont necessarily think of me as icelandic even though i do. Um, i like purple comments that i will but you respond to our question. So as far as equality like from my time midnight one is my extending that abortion is not an issue people dont its not even in the news or part of the dialogue when i find up in the discussion people. Were just like why do you even talking . About that is and ive also known as on the news on tv the newscasters who report and all dressed up with tons of make up the one who does the maintenance is but theyre out of this drink reporting their hairs ball, and that would never happen in the us. And also by last thing is if you could talk a little bit about how people did it. These are treated in the island. Theres a place called soul. Well, you know. So hey matt. Yeah, so hey were there a little bit isolated but i didnt get general their lot. More integrated into societies big deal that you to me that you are viewed someone with a disability in your book. I hate to be now you live but that would never happen, but this but give me you was feminist in the us. Everyone was totally excludes disabled people thank you for those questions. I hope i remember im gonna try to remember them all so the middle one was about women in media and and not having a lot of makeup. I think thats practical as far as i recall that i think they have to pay for all their own clothes and get all their own clothing allowance and stuff. So and its just kind of a different maybe look and then once youre outside, i mean, its just windy like theres nothing you can you know so that theres just nothing you can do and and i noticed that the sort of the the look quote unquote in the countryside is even different even i find to generalize that in iceland, you know many occasions are dressier than i would find coming from canada but in the countryside, its almost the reverse because really the weather is in charge there. So its going to be windy. Its going to be rainy why you would never why would you wear shoes like this because its gonna be muddy or whatever. You have to be very practical. Abortion you asked about you, which is obviously something that is is being discussed in this country a lot these days and and you are right. I would say in iceland. Its another healthcare procedure like every other healthcare procedure. So so people would you know sort of say why are you asking your worst if not asking about you know, whatever my liposuction or whatever else people are doing now. Someones going to say that i compared these two procedures together and ill get in trouble. Anyway, im not im not comparing these two procedures, but what im trying to say is that yeah, its its not the the hot button issue as a woman that i interview in the book discusses because i think you know yeah, its its just not a its just not an issue and thirdly when it comes to women with disabilities. Absolutely, you know in my in my book. I thought it was so. I i always knew that i thought it was important to paint this portrait of a country using as diverse a range of a viewpoints and stories and perspectives as i come across because we are all unique people and we all have unique stories and we all have unique strengths and weaknesses and joys and concerns and and so i couldnt really paint a portrait of the country without being as comprehensive as i could and so hopefully there are people you know of all ages and backgrounds and ethnicities and locations in the country, etc. Etc. Many of them would not call themselves feminists for example, you know, they were not people that even if you know iceland well, i hope that theyre not the people that you would think of right away, you know bjork is not in this book. Shes not she is not even mentioned until page 161 really . I i actually i its one of the things that my edits i took out a few bureau references because i thought there was too many then but but you know, i i guess i could have interviewed her the first president , but i thought you know, shes the person that you think of right away. I want to interview the people who the person who isnt famous because probably the people who are reading this arent famous and i want this to be relatable to people so when you talk about womens disabilities exactly i have only one woman with ability in the book, but again my my and and she is the host of a television program. And shows using my chapter on media again again, because i wanted to um, you know, she she addresses of course the sort of intersectionality between being a woman being a woman with a disability which was important for me to mention. But i didnt want that to be the main sort of focus with her necessarily and and shes a shes a really interesting tv host as well this program. I dont know if youve seen it when youve been in iceland. Its a great program, isnt it . Yeah, and its all conceived and run primarily by people with disabilities and all the interviews and its a really fun awardwinning show and she said that too that you know, and it i it really struck a chord with me that i find that sometimes people, you know who are born in iceland paint all immigrants with the same brush and think what we need to do this for immigrants because these your challenges and she kind of said the same thing that its like people with disabilities are all painted this brush. This is the challenge here. This is what we need to do. Whereas of course, its a whole, you know range of people with with all these different skills and and and and thats not something that you know behooves anybody to to sort of kind of gloss over some of these issues. And oh, im sorry. I just wanted to jump in for a second talk a little bit more about abortion because i know for a lot of us. Its like really top of mind in a intrusive and unignorable way right now one of the things that is a remarkable in this book is elizas chapter about just the sexual the way that sexuality is treated as part of normal, Healthy Human life in iceland and that and that includes the like everything that you can imagine thats connected to. The idea of like sex and that people have it. It was just so remarkable to me. I really had i really had no idea. It was really like what i mean. I was like some of the things that you described were sort of like really kind of mindblowing to im gonna tell you that i never thought that i would write a book with the word in it. Ever and i never thought i read that book and im a first lady and i have that word in my book. But yeah, um at coming from a culture that has like, you know, different attitudes towards sex and sexuality has that been difficult for you as like now the parent of teenage for sure and but you know, absolutely when i started to write this book and i mean i kind of surprised myself i think a bit with that chapter. I always knew that i that i needed to talk about that because thats an important part of gender equality. Its a really important dimension. I think its also a reason you know this sort of lack of stigma surrounding single mothers and and the sort of lack of less fewer double standards and all that. I think thats a reason why were doing well in gender equality. Its also a reason why we have shouldnt say a reason why but we also do have you know, the highest rate of chlamydia in europe and and irates of gender based phones and you know, theres balances so i knew and he has talked about it, but even when i was writing about it, like for sure, i have teenage kids and it kind of freaks me out of it because im raised with in a different environment, you know, so i dont know we have to have me over in a few years and see how ive adjusted. Yeah. I mean we can dig more into that off off camera. Im i cut off. If theres only makes ill just so what struck me the most and i spent 10 days in jupa week and the surrounding areas and whoever i spoke to these women had a very strong. Yeah, thats when it start. Yeah, exactly something for you. Yeah, so that the women i met had a very strong can do attitude. And i think through your book it has weve the same theme of why not. Right, and so i was wondering what would you attribute that to because while i understand its a little bit easier to conquer your challenges. Well because your child care thats been taking care of for i still believe there needs to be a certain sense in believing in yourself to just go out and do it. So, why do you think icelandic women that ive met and might not be the majority . Have a very strong sense of who they are and what they want in comparison to other women in the world. I thats a great question. I think part of that is is role models and strong women throughout history and maybe thats there also because you know, were a Small Society and youve had to wear a lot of hats and men went out fishing and the women had to look after everything when they were gone and you didnt know even if they were going to come back or when they were gonna come back. So there was a theres a sort of pragmatism to that and i think you know the older i get to the more i think that role models are incredibly important. In all aspects of society and weve been fortunate in iceland that we do have good role models. We continue to you know in government we have a gender equal cabinet. We have a female Prime Minister the bishop of the National Church is a woman the head of the National Police as a woman. We had the first female president in the world divorced single mother for 16 years, and he was elected in 1980 and that makes a difference i try to profile, you know, i didnt want to write a sort of iceland 101 history in the book, but instead through the book i sort of try to profile a few moments in icelandic history that have sort of strong women, but i really had to choose kind of cherry pick just a few examples because there are others and i think thats important. But again, i think there are strong women in in history. In in many countries, we just dont tell them enough. We dont we dont elevate those stories enough and i think that part of that comes from from what we value is important in history, you know, theres one and this is an icelandic story, but and im going again off in a tangent. But anyway, its my book so i can do that. So in iceland you can trace back if youre born in icel, you know your ancestry for generations back, you know back to the time of the settlement in the year 800 and something often and i remember looking at my husbands interest and his i think it was his great great grandmother something she was born in 1852 and she died in 1953 at the age of a hundred and one and she had i think 14 or 15 children. She outlived all of them, but one some of them, you know died in infancy where at five years old or at six years old some of them died in their 70s, and she was just still alive. And she lived up in the west fjords the sort of claw part of the northwest part of iceland and i met somebody there once when we went official visit an old man who remembered this woman dressed in black knitting in the corner like a sort of icelandic madame defarsh there, you know in the 19 the late 40s were and i always im so fascinated by that woman because she would have been born in a turf hut when you know, there were no rubber boots in iceland in the winter and she died like when Elvis Presley was popular and its just amazing to me that she lived this life. Probably a very, you know, quote unquote ordinary life, but we dont tell her story, you know, we tell the story about maybe the men who did them or her husband and i think that theyre remarkable women like that. She how can you not have been remarkable having that long of a life and having had that much grief and presumably joy at different points of time. And you know, i wish that we somehow could unearth these stories of no doubt remarkable women, you know every day women everywhere in our lives whove really been because they you know, we all know people like that. We all know you. Im sure that all of you here can think of people like that right away whove done something really remarkable and credible even though its not gonna go go down in the history books. I think well do one more question. I should have just kept the mic. So your marital partner. Your husband is really supportive. How are other men in iceland . Are they allies . I think so. Im quite optimistic and maybe im optimistic because im married to a great guy and i have three, you know, perfect sons. No, im a little bite, but you know, no i am optimistic and i think generally speaking male allies are important in this and i and i think important to realize that gender quality working to gender quality is gonna put benefit them too, you know, and and we know that societies that have more gender equality have happier more peaceful longer living populations for people of all genders, so, i i dont know that if you stopped a man on the street in iceland and said that to him that he would necessarily know that statistic, but i think that most men would kind of be like, yeah, of course, it should be like that again. I dont want to paint some completely rosy portrait, but i but i hope that thats the case. I know that theyre examining for instance, you know this growth of in cells and sort of, you know disenchanted men on the internet and and people in nordic countries over all are kind of looking at that and havent seen such a big growth at it. But something absolutely that people are keeping in mind which kind of arises from, you know lack of opportunity and in many areas and all that. Thank you all thank you all so much for coming. Thank you for governor christim going to rip the bandaid off and get right to some of the topics. You may not want to discuss or may not want to discuss all the time. And then were gonna get right into not my first rodeo lessons from the heartland. Heartland. Youre brand new book. Have you ever thought generally speaking about running for president . Well people ask me about it quite a bit. So then of course you you have to but im really focused on staying in south dakota. Im running for reelection this year. Hope that people of our state trust me to serve them another four years and and thats really what my goal is beyond that. I i know we do need g