Bríet Bjarnhéðinsdóttir (September 27, 1856 – March 16, 1940) was an early Icelandic advocate for

women's liberation The women's liberation movement (WLM) was a political alignment of women and feminism, feminist intellectualism. It emerged in the late 1960s and continued till the 1980s, primarily in the industrialized nations of the Western world, which resu ...

and

women's suffrage Women's suffrage is the women's rights, right of women to Suffrage, vote in elections. Several instances occurred in recent centuries where women were selectively given, then stripped of, the right to vote. In Sweden, conditional women's suffra ...

. She founded the first women's magazine in Iceland, ''Kvennablaðið''. For a period of time she served on the

Reykjavík Reykjavík is the Capital city, capital and largest city in Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland on the southern shore of Faxaflói, the Faxaflói Bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is List of northernmost items, the worl ...

city council.

Life

Bríet, an educated school teacher, graduated from a women's school in 1880 and began working in Reykjavík from 1887. From 1885, she wrote various articles for women's rights under the signature AESA, and after she moved to the capital she held speeches for women's rights. In 1888, she married the liberal editor Valdimar Ásmundsson. She founded a women's society (1894), managed a women's magazine (1895–1926), co-founded a journalist's society (1897) and managed a children's magazine (1898–1903). In 1902 and 1904 Bríet visited the US, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, which made her aware of the international women's movement. In 1906 she attended the International Women's Suffrage Conference in Copenhagen, and was encouraged by

Carrie Chapman Catt Carrie Chapman Catt (born Carrie Clinton Lane; January 9, 1859#Fowler, Fowler, p. 3 – March 9, 1947) was an American women's suffrage leader who campaigned for the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which gave U.S. women t ...

to found a women's suffrage society in Iceland. In 1907 she founded the first women's suffrage society in Iceland, Kvenréttindafélag Íslands and served as its president in 1907–1911 and 1912–1927. Bríet Bjarnhéðinsdóttir belonged to the first group of women to be elected to the

city council, where she served in 1908–1912 and 1914–1920. In 1916, and again in 1926 she unsuccessfully ran for

Althingi The (; ), anglicised as Althingi or Althing, is the supreme national parliament of Iceland. It is the oldest surviving parliament in the world. The Althing was founded in 930 at (' thing fields' or 'assembly fields'), about east of what la ...

, the parliament of Iceland. Her daughter, Laufey Valdimarsdóttir, was a notable lawyer.

References

* Ártöl og áfangar í sögu íslenskra kvenna, Kvennasögusafn Íslands, Reykjavík 1998 * Manntal á Íslandi 1910, V2 Reykjavík; Ættfræðifélagið, Reykjavík 2003 Icelandic feminists Icelandic women's rights activists Icelandic suffragists 1856 births 1940 deaths 19th-century Icelandic people 19th-century Icelandic women writers 19th-century Icelandic writers {{Iceland-politician-stub