I guess most of you know about this by now, but it is still very cool:
"Johanna Sigurdardottir, named as Iceland's prime minister on Sunday, is the first openly lesbian head of government in Europe, if not the world - at least in modern times.
[...]
In Iceland itself, however, the new prime minister's sexual orientation appears to be causing less excitement than it is abroad.
What is really historic about this new cabinet, says Skuli Helgeson, the general secretary of Ms Sigurardottir's Social Democratic Alliance, is not the fact that its leader is a lesbian, but that for the first time in Icelandic history it boasts an equal number of men and women." The rest of the article on
BBC news is interesting too.
The Huffington Post also writes about it.
As for her politics:
"After President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson formally asked Ms. Sigurdardottir to lead a new government, she signaled at a news conference that she planned a shake-up of the Haarde government’s policies, particularly on housing and jobs. “All the ministers in my cabinet must work fast, take firm action and accept responsibility for their actions,” she said. “The people of this country must see that there is a new government in place which will defend their homes and rebuild the job market.”
Ms. Sigurdardottir comes to the prime minister’s job with a formidable reputation. As social affairs minister in several governments since 1987, she is credited with pushing through policies that widened housing opportunities for Iceland’s poor and strengthened the social welfare system. She has said she will use her powers as prime minister to push for debt relief for the most vulnerable Icelanders" (
NY Times).
