Masculine Models in Modern Iceland in the Context of Gender Policy Reform and the Economic Crisis of 2008–2011

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2025-1/163-174

Authors

Keywords:

Iceland, masculinity, gender, intersectionality, crisis, historiography

Abstract

The article examines the masculine patterns and images that are the most popular among modern Icelanders. The author shows how the reforms in gender legislation in the early 2000s and the economic crisis of 2008–2011 have contributed to the emergence of new masculine models in Iceland, such as the “caring father”, and led to a rethinking of the role of more conventional, dominant gender images which appealed to the Viking Age. The crisis and new gender legislation have created a more inclusive environment, that has contributed to the emergence not of the one new, dominant masculine model, but of many non-mutually exclusive masculine identities that intersect and coexist. The work also touches on the main perspectives that exist in the anthropological literature on the problems of the intersection of masculine and national discourses in Iceland. The models which researchers use to explain the emergence and existence of certain masculine images in Icelandic society are described as well. It is also shown how these images are utilized in the construction of Icelandic national myths and the modern Icelandic nation.

Author Biography

  • Gennady Snedkov, the Russian Academy of Sciences N. N. Miklouho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology

    Snedkov, Gennady A. — Postgraduate Student, the Russian Academy of Sciences N. N. Miklouho-Maklay Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology (Moscow, Russian Federation).   E-mail: jgus@bk.ru  ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7797-4271

    For citation: Snedkov, G. A. 2025. Masculine Models in Modern Iceland in the Context of Gender Policy Reform and the Economic Crisis of 2008–2011. Herald of Anthropology (Vestnik Antropologii) 1: 163–174.

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Published

15.03.2025

Issue

No. 1 (2025): Вестник антропологии

Section

The Anthropology of Gender