MARGARET WILLSON.

Author & Anthropologist.

“I think most societies erase women’s contributions.”

Iceland has a long history of women going to sea. Margaret Willson, in conversation with Erica Dingman, discusses her research into the hidden history of Icelandic seawomen, both past and present, and how that knowledge can offer insight into approaches for gender equality today.

Erica Dingman: You have an interesting personal history with fishing.  How did that experience inform your research about Icelandic seawomen?

Margaret Willson: A lot. I could not have done this research had I not mostly grown up in a fishing community and worked at sea myself.  When I started my research in Iceland, my Icelandic friend Disa and I came upon a small stone plaque that said “… Thurídur Einarsdóttir, one of Iceland’s greatest fishing captains. She lived from 1777 to 1863.” “Were there others?” I asked, but Disa said she knew no others. However, based on my own experience working on boats in Australia and elsewhere, I felt that there had to be other Icelandic seawomen. That confidence of knowledge is what drove me.

Iceland’s impressive historic record of women working at sea made my research possible. Indeed, the wealth of research was much bigger than I expected. Though most literature about seafolk cite only a few women, it turned out to be thousands. In other countries such written accounts of common people, particularly women, just do not exist.

When it came to interviewing women who recently worked at sea, they wouldn’t have talked so openly had I not worked at sea myself. At first, however, many of the women would almost interrogate me: “Oh, so you worked at sea, did you? What did you do?”. I had to validate that I knew what I was talking about and prove that I was not just another academic interested in talking about ‘oh, here’s another woman working at sea. Let’s get some funny little thing about her.’  So, my early experience coupled with extensive research of seawomen from the past and present allowed for much deeper analysis.  

ED: After these initial interrogations did you gain trust throughout other communities?

MW: I had to prove myself often. Interestingly, most seawomen did not know each other. After we finished the research, my research assistant and I started an Icelandic Facebook page as a platform for the women to connect with each other.

ED: Can you recall a favorite story that is emblematic of your findings?

MW: If I were to give only one example, it would be that of Inga Fanney who is currently an officer on a large cargo vessel – I talk about her quite a bit in the book. When she kindly agreed to read a draft of the book, she found the name Gudný Haglin. When Gudný was young she went to sea with her father, but after her mother died in the early 1900s her aunt said that fishing was not lady-like and forbade her to fish. It was suddenly unacceptable. Women were supposed to be housewives and gender was becoming much less porous. Gudný turned out to be Inga’s great-grandmother. In a sense, I find this story emblematic because Inga comes from a line of seafaring women. Although she knew quite a bit about Gudný and also had many of her papers, she did not know that her great-grandmother was also at sea. That’s how effectively that history has been erased.

However, until the later 1800s women at sea were applauded. Women were sea captains, helmsmen and applauded for incredible rowing skills. So, gender duties were much more porous because everybody had to do their part to survive. By the late 1800s you start to see a distinct shift. Women who work at sea were also shown to be good housewives. After 1900, seawomen  begin to be referred to in derogatory terms and a superstition arises that women at sea  are unlucky. With the advent of the larger motorized vessels after the early 1900s, the sea became a man’s world.

ED: A law enacted in 1720 ordered that women receive equal pay for equal work. Could you comment on that? Is there a link between this law and the Icelandic women’s movement in the 1970s? 

MW: Since I wrote the book, I’ve come to understand this law better. Before the 1900s Iceland had a contract system whereby there were only a few landowners, but many who were contracted to work on the farms. Workers had little liberty and the farmer had complete control as to what he would pay. Often you got room and board, but no money. Generally, women received much less clothing and food. Farmers who had access to a boat or lived close to the sea often acquired wealth that way. The workers were expected to go to sea, whether you were a man or woman, and both would get an equal share. Bu that share went to the farmer who decided the workers’ pay, which was much less for women. So that 1720 law had nothing to do with gender equality but was a way to ensure that the farmer got equal value for labor.  

However, the law set a precedent that everyone working on a boat got equal shares, which was not the case in countries like Canada where women were paid much less or not at all. That precedent was one reason why women went to sea; the pay was far greater than it was in the fish factories.

 The women’s rights movement in the 1970s was a separate matter. It made good economic sense for women to go to sea. There was a feeling of “we are women so we can do it”. So rather than seawomen influencing the women’s movement, the women’s movement influenced many more women to go to sea.

ED: Iceland has a good reputation of supporting gender equality. Do you think that seawomen have influenced that?

MW: Iceland has great gender equality in certain ways and in certain ways not. Right now, it’s terrible for women working at sea. Their quota system has corporatized the right to fish most species. The result is that the fishing has been consolidated between five or six corporations, which has decimated the small fisher family. Now there are whole communities where no one has the right to fish. So, before when a large percentage of Icelanders fished, now it’s only about three percent. Women have been affected even more than men.  

I recently gave a talk in Iceland where I compared the number of Icelandic seawomen with those in the U.S., which is known to have a poorer record in terms of gender equality. In comparison to Iceland’s shipping and ferry system where there’s almost no women, the Washington State ferry system workforce is now almost 25 percent women on all levels from deckhand to captain. This is the result of a union rule that all hiring, and promotions be done completely on seniority, creating a system that is nonpersonal and unbiased. Iceland’s Ministry of Transportation would like to create a fairer system there, but such changes are always complicated.

ED: Icelandic seawomen are largely vacant from the cultural memory of most Icelanders. What do you think this says about today’s larger social history?

MW: I think most societies erase women’s contributions. People who are not powerful and influential get erased. My book is indictive of that. It’s endemic and insidious in all societies. In the States, in Canada, I mean everywhere. The only difference in Iceland is its amazing written historical record. And it was lucky that I could interview all those women so we could reveal this hidden history. In Scotland and Norway, they say there were few seawomen. Really? I have my doubts. Perhaps the difference is that Iceland was impoverished and had so few people that they didn’t have the luxury of being discriminatory. However, wherever people don’t have power, don’t fit the way a society wants to view itself, or how the dominant group likes to view society, they’ll just erase the facts they don’t like.

ED: Are there some general lessons we can draw from your interviews with Icelandic seawomen?

MW: I’d like to answer this in two parts.

Where I write about the interviews in my book, what I think is so instructive there is that these women were really good at setting boundaries, understanding what needs to be taken seriously and when to let go, including taking yourself too seriously. We need to know how to relax yet have boundaries and not take any guff. In other words, don’t allow yourself to be victimized and have the knowledge that one is equal.  I think the women in those interviews set very good parameters and ideals on how to do that. Because I interviewed so many, I was able to see patterns. They had an ability to laugh, yet not let anybody subjugate them. As expected, they were strong, but they were also socially adept. They understood not to get angry at provocation, but rather have alternative reactions.

In terms of a large picture, what I thought before researching my book was that gender equality is moving forward. That is no longer the case. Now I think that we should not think in terms of progression. In other words, I believe that today gender roles are narrowly defined whereas in Iceland in the 1700s and 1800s perhaps those roles were more broadly defined. Of course, women didn’t have as many rights as men, but I don’t think that moving toward gender equality is necessarily a straight line. I think that we have to keep thinking about it, be creative and look at ourselves and at society. I think that gender equality is not going to fall into narrow definitions. We have to keep expanding and rethinking gender equality, resetting our own parameters of how we define our own reality.

ED: How should we be thinking about gender equality going forward?

MW: When you asked about how the seawomen may have affected the women today, I think it’s the seawomen and the roles women had to take – rather like the pioneer women in the Pacific Northwest – that you have a history where women and men had to survive. If you were to survive it took great strength both emotionally and physically. So Icelandic women today have a thousand-year history of being strong. On the surface Icelandic society today looks like an affluent Nordic country, but the difference comes from their long history of strength, suffering and survival. Today’s Icelandic women may seem soft and funny on the surface, yet they’re made of steel.

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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