Journal of Interdisciplinary Feminist Thought Volume 7 Issue 1 Women and Leadership: Economic, Article 5 Political, and Cultural Aspects 7-16-2013 Framing Saint Johanna: Media Coverage of Iceland’s First Female (and the World’s First Openly Gay) Prime Minister Dean E. Mundy Appalachian State University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.salve.edu/jift Part of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Studies Commons, Political Science Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Mundy, Dean E. (2013) "Framing Saint Johanna: Media Coverage of Iceland’s First Female (and the World’s First Openly Gay) Prime Minister," Journal of Interdisciplinary Feminist Thought: Vol. 7 : Iss. 1 , Article 5. Available at: https://digitalcommons.salve.edu/jift/vol7/iss1/5 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Commons @ Salve Regina. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Interdisciplinary Feminist Thought by an authorized editor of Digital Commons @ Salve Regina. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Mundy: Saint Johanna: Media Coverage of Iceland’s Gay Prime Minister Introduction On Monday, January 26, 2009, Iceland’s government collapsed following weeks of civil unrest and months of economic panic. Conservative Prime Minister Geir Haarde, along with his administration, resigned, leaving two of Iceland’s major political parties, the Social Democrat Alliance and Left-Green Party, to form a new government. Less than a week later, on February 1, the country named Iceland’s minister for social affairs, 66-year-old Johanna Sigurdardottir, the new Prime Minister. While Sigurdardottir’s new cabinet touted the country’s milestone of achieving equal representation of men and women for the first time in Iceland’s government, the world’s media focused on the new Prime Minister.