Practising the Right to Vote. Female Voters and Male Inertia in Iceland, 1915–1944

In this chapter we show that in the aftermath of female suffrage, granted in two steps in 1915 and 1920, Icelandic women were not expected to act as independent political agents. We contrast the suffragist view of women voters against the more mainstream discourses about women as incompetent voters. Moreover, making use of two case studies where voters (and particularly women) were invited to vote in the “comfort” of their home, we demonstrate how the political elite tried to limit the impact of the new female voters, especially the younger and potentially more radical. Faced with formal and informal hindrances in the form of gendered practices and habits of the political and social institutions, women had in fact been welcomed into the electorate as long as they did not change the course of Icelandic politics.