KEY POINTS:
REYKJAVIK - On Bondadagur, or Husband's Day, the menfolk of Iceland are spoiled by their wives and girlfriends, who serve them with traditional delicacies such as ram's testicles and sheep's head jelly, a recipe for which is handily included in the latest online edition of Iceland Review, alongside
the latest bulletins on the economic meltdown.
Icelandic women, however, are more likely to be studying the financial news than the recipes - and more likely to be thinking about how to put right the mess their men have made of the banking system than about cooking them comfort food. The tiny nation, with a population of just over 300,000 people, has been overwhelmed by an economic disaster that is threatening its very survival.
But for a generation of 40-something women, the havoc is translating into an opportunity to step into the positions vacated by the men blamed for the crisis, and to play a leading role in creating a more balanced economy, which, they argue, should incorporate overtly feminine values.
The ruling male elite is scarcely in a position to argue. The krona has collapsed; interest rates and inflation have soared; companies and households which have borrowed in foreign currency are overwhelmed by their debts; and unemployment is at record levels. An exodus of young people is feared from the capital only recently held up as a centre of cutting-edge cool.
The idea that Reykjavik, an attractive, low-rise provincial place, could be a financial nerve centre on a par with the gleaming skyscrapers of London and Wall St now seems absurd. Over the past 10 years, however, little Iceland became a test-bed for the new economic order. Led by businessmen such as Baugur boss Jon Asgeir Johannesson, a nation previously best known for cod and hot springs reinvented itself as an Atlantic tiger.
The Icelanders bought stakes in huge tracts of the British high street, including House of Fraser, Whistles and Karen Millen. Their banks were equally buccaneering, adopting free market reforms with gusto and moving with relish into financial engineering. The upshot: they now owe at least six times the country's income for 2008 and have been taken into state hands.
Iceland's women are at the forefront of the clean-up. The crisis led to the downfall of the Government and the Prime Minister's residence - which resembles a slightly oversized white dormer bungalow - is now occupied by Johanna Sigurdardottir, an elegant 66-year-old lesbian who is the world's first openly gay premier. When she lost a bid to lead her party in the 1990s, she lifted her fist and declared: "My time will come." Her hour has now arrived - and the same is true for a cadre of highly accomplished businesswomen.
Prominent among them are Halla Tomasdottir and Kristin Petursdottir, the founders of Audur Capital, who have teamed up with the singer Bjork to set up an investment fund to boost the ravaged economy by investing in green technology.
Petursdottir, a former senior banking executive, and Tomasdottir, the former managing director of the Iceland Chamber of Commerce, decided just before the crunch to set up a firm bringing female values into the mainly male spheres of private equity, wealth management and corporate advice.
Tomasdottir says: "Our Bjork fund is to focus on sustainable growth. Iceland was the first in the world into the crisis, but we could be the first out, and women have a big role to play in that. It goes back to our Viking women. While the men were out there raping and pillaging, the women were running the show at home."
Even before the credit crunch, Iceland scored highly on measures of sex equality, coming fourth out of 130 countries on the international gender gap index (behind Norway, Finland and Sweden). The rate of female participation in the labour force runs at more than 80 per cent, compared with just over 90 per cent for men; there is generous maternity and childcare provision from the state, and paternity leave.
Most Icelanders remain geographically close to their extended families, making childcare easier, and the distances in Reykjavik are small, so mothers can easily get to their children's schools in a crisis.
Johanna Waagfjord, 50, the chief executive of Hagar, which invests in food and fashion retail, is an economist by training. Perched in her third-floor office above the shops in the pristine but near-deserted Smaralind shopping mall in Reykjavik, wearing a chic white shirt and trim-fitting jeans, she, like the other Icelandic business women I encounter, looks a good decade younger than her years. Waagfjord and her Icelandic sisters talk openly about the womanly and maternal qualities they bring to the boardroom table.
"The value you bring as a woman is the maternal aspect, the strength that comes from motherhood."
Tomasdottir, whose company shares a name with her 5-year-old daughter, agrees. "Audur was one of our foremost Viking women - the name means wisdom, strength and happiness, and a clear space. We talk of the company as a daughter."
Tomasdottir is also unabashed at promoting middle-aged women as a force for good in the boardroom.
Although there is a group of self-confident women taking centre stage in Iceland, the country is still far from being a businesswoman's Utopia.
There is also a fear of the "glass cliff": the worry that, if women do win top jobs, they will inherit very difficult situations, some will inevitably fail, and the cause of equality will be set back.
Not everyone in Iceland has bought into the idea that women will revolutionise capitalism. "Women would like to think it's their turn now, but it won't be - there will be a bit of fuss for a while but men will keep the real power at the top," said a local taxi driver in his sixties.
That is not a view that gains much traction with Tomasdottir.
"For the first time in 100 years we have the chance to create a company, a society, a country, and hopefully a world that is more sustainable, more fair for men as well as women. If we are not going to do that now, then when will we?"
* Ruth Sunderland is the Observer's business editor.
THE BJORK FUND
Named after the Icelandic pop star Bjork, five principles rule the investment fund.
* Risk awareness: investors only put money into things they understand.
* Profit with principles: investments must have not just economic profit, but a positive social and environmental impact.
* Emotional capital: the fund does an 'emotional due diligence' - whether the corporate culture is an asset or a liability.
* Straight talk: investors insist the language of finance should be accessible, and not part of the alienating nature of banking culture.
* Independence: the fund aims to increase women's financial independence.
- OBSERVER
