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Eliza Reid

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2024-10-06

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2024-10-06

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1. “Speak up and use your voice and help to elevate other people as well. I think we so often think, I'm the only one who thinks this. And that isn't the case. And we need to help other people get the confidence to speak up and to listen to each other.”

   2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

2. “I think again, showing sometimes in a business context, the bottom line, the fact that it is always more important and showing people what it does for them, showing that it is not a zero-sum game. It's not a matter of somehow reducing their contributions or their opinions and also showing that it benefits men in other areas. If we look back to child rearing, for example, I don't think I know of any men who said it was such a shame I had to take my paternity leave. I missed all this work and why was I hanging out with my child so much? I don't think anybody regrets the time that they spend on their parental leave. And so it's a matter of showing those benefits as well to men.”

   2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

3. “Exactly. I think exactly like you say, the diversity is important, the different perspectives, if somebody says, well, it's always been done this way, maybe that's an opportunity to try and do things in a different way. Because I think we have to be careful not to roll our eyes or make too many statements that, well, if it were women doing it, it would be much, much better. Because I think that leads to a kind of level of us versus them where maybe then men feel like women are trying to work towards gender equality at their expense, which I cannot emphasize enough is as absolutely not the case. It's something for everybody to work together to achieve. So, you know, maybe if a certain woman were running Lehman Sisters, it wouldn't have gone bust. We don't know. But I think we, as you said, we can't oversimplify things and we can't say that men have no role in trying to achieve this equality.”

   2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

4. “There was definitely a lot of soul searching and a lot of people will tell you that it was men who were running the banks that all went bankrupt and women who came in and cleaned up. For example, right afterwards, we had our very first female prime minister who came into the country and one of the investment companies, I think possibly the only one that didn't go bankrupt, was run by women. This is probably more anecdotal, but I think makes a point. There's definitely a lot of soul searching after the economic collapse and looking for ways out of the crisis. And I think Iceland was generally praised for how it got out of the crisis quite quickly.”

   2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

5. “That's an excellent question. I would think it's to not put that burden on women, but to put that burden on the decision makers within the company. Why? Because it's the right thing to do, because it's going to benefit your bottom line. It's going to make your employees happier. It's going to make your customers happier. There's no reason not to do it. One needs to take a holistic approach to it and one needs to remain vigilant. It isn't a matter of holding a seminar and ticking a box and saying you're done with it. We have to remain vigilant. And that's something that the COVID-19 pandemic has shown us, that it's not our fault that we couldn't remain vigilant, but people went home. We took a step back. And so we have to continue along this path, and it's going to benefit everybody.”

   2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

6. “They are well, they're dual citizens, which is important for me. And so they have Canadian passports as well. I try to keep them interested in hockey, and obviously they stay in touch with family members in Canada. So I hope they feel in touch with it. And I have a Scottish heritage. My grandparents were all Scottish, so they also feel like they are Scottish a little bit too.”

   2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

7. “I think that's maybe why we do it every single day. I think that's not an exaggeration to say that every day that I lived in the UK for five years, people ask me where in the States I was from. Not that I expect people to really know the nuance between the accents, but if one is unsure, it's always better to just ask where one is from, generally speaking.”

   2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

8. “Their studies, it's only after they've completed the course. They still need to save all this money first to be able to pay for it. I think that that is a challenge that we need to be working on here in Iceland as well as to make it easier for people to learn the language because that's going to help everybody.”

   2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

9. “I think for me, I knew when I was moving to the country that I would be moving at least for the long term. I wasn't moving to see how it would go, which gave me an incentive to start learning the language right away because you can live in Iceland and never learn to speak a word of Icelandic. So I knew that I wanted to start learning it right away. I was fortunate that my union paid for some of the lessons and I had a good job as well. So I could cover other costs. And I just made it a priority to start learning Icelandic and trying to speak it as quickly as I could. And many of the larger companies here as well do pay for costs for their employees who are learning the language. But it's certainly a challenge here, especially for immigrants who come to the country who, for instance, are taking public transportation to and from their jobs and then they have a family to look after and then even though they might be a member of a union that will reimburse the costs for their”

   2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

10. “These men are doing something else, or she seems to be crying a lot. If I were that man, I would be crying too at that situation. I don't know why he isn't also crying. To, you know, we tried, my husband, for instance, loves going to sporting events when the national team is playing and always goes to the same number of women sporting events as men's sporting events because it's important to showcase and highlight women in sport as well as men in sport. So that's an area that I emphasize a lot. And another area I emphasize maybe is this issue, especially with kids and social media of looking at how we see women represented in social media and teenagers. And I'm constantly talking to them saying, why don't you encourage your friends for girls to put posts to themselves doing something, not sort of selfies with them sucking in their cheeks and trying to look fancy? So of course they roll their eyes at me because I'm their mom. And so I'm the least interesting person for them, but I still do my best.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

11. “That is also a good question, and for me, it is very important. I'm very proud to be a feminist. I think it's a very positive thing to be called a feminist. I don't see it as a hot button word in the sense that some people might. We have three boys and then a girl together. And so my boys are the oldest ones for me. They're just entering their teenage years. And for me, it's vital to raise them as feminists to see that they need to, they come with a lot of privilege and they need to recognize that and use that for good and treat everyone with respect. I think for me with my boys right now, I think about it a lot in terms of talking about how I see women represented in the media, whether that's me joking with them while we watch a movie on television and me thinking, oh, she must be very cold running around in that cold skirt in that short skirt all the time.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

12. “Well, I like to think that having a reduced cost of childcare again puts more of the burden on families to say, do we want to have more children? Are we able to have more children rather than can we afford to have more children? It's absolutely not my place to say what other countries should or shouldn't be introducing within their own societies. I can only comment on the effect that that has had here in Iceland, both for society as a whole and for me personally. I've often said in interviews that I wouldn't have had four children in just under six years if I had been living in Canada, for example, because I couldn't have afforded it.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

13. “Well, I think the fact that if I'm correct with the UK, it's often the employer that is paying the parental leave payments, whereas it's the state in Iceland. And I think that makes a huge difference because of course there's the knowledge with the individual and the person has to pay for replacement, but it's financially less of a concern, especially for SMEs that where one person can really make a difference. And again, there's just been this societal shift. There's a very high birth rate in Iceland. And people just expect young people if they want to, to have families and know that that's a normal thing and understand that that means that people are going to take time off. It means they're going to get to know their children and develop a good relationship with their children and then go back to work where they can also contribute to work and do well and create success for their own organization.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

14. “And be promoted more within the company. I think it requires running the business with these gender equality glasses on all the time because it's going to benefit everyone.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

15. “I think that's absolutely true. I think having these systems in place so that when people and their child bearing years, it's fairly easy for them to go back to work is something that is extremely important. But again, it's multifaceted as are so many things. So one of those things is encouraging this reducing this mental load at home for the women so that they feel that they can take on more areas of responsibility. And I think it's really remaining vigilant so that we're seeing that the results show that this is important. So if I'm running a company and I know that the more diverse my company is, the more money my company is going to make, I would think it is in my best interest to encourage diversity whether that means flexible working schedules or writing job descriptions that are encourage more women to apply if I need more women in the job or having interviews or situations that allow women to progress.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

16. “Show that there are more women who would apply, but we also need to write job descriptions that are more open to jobs that would encourage more women to apply or whatever group it is that we are looking for to increase. But there are always qualified people. You know, in Iceland, two-thirds of the undergraduate students at universities right now are women. So we need to be seeing these, I don't say we need two-thirds women in the C-suite soon, but to say that there aren't enough qualified women is incorrect.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

17. “I think maybe not to that same extent. We still need to see more women on boards and there are organizations like the Women Association of Business Leaders who are really pushing to say, as you said, there are more than a certain small core group of women. And also women, for instance, who put themselves in a database to be consulted as experts from media interviews, for example, because there's always this debate of, well, we would have more women, but women aren't applying for the job. Or we would interview more women, but they don't want to be interviewed. And we need to kind of work concurrently in a whole lot of areas. We need to”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

18. “Far. So, I think that corporate Iceland is definitely an area where we need to be improving. And I'm an immigrant to Iceland. I also see that when we're moving towards gender equality, we can't look to be, say, one very privileged group of women. We have to be really working towards achieving equality for everyone. And for example, women of foreign origin in Iceland do face other challenges that locally born women don't face. And if we don't recognize those challenges and work to eliminate them, then we're not going to be achieving this. And that also goes, for instance, to other groups like women with disabilities, non-binary women, where we also see further challenges. And again, we're not going to be able to erase this gap if we plough forward and leave other people behind.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

19. “Yes, there. When I wrote the book, there were no female CEOs that were running companies traded on the Ice Endic Stock Exchange. There is now one, but there are still more men called Arnie who are running companies. And we see these examples in other countries where there's more men called John, for example. And absolutely, we need just to see more women in the C-suite of companies and investing in women-led companies, women controlling the pocket, that's controlling the investment, and then also investing in women. And we do have these quotas in Iceland, for instance, on the boards of publicly traded companies, but we aren't seeing quite enough results of that. So, you know, it's only, I think, almost 35% of women on the boards of publicly traded companies because they don't have the penalties if they're not actually living up to it yet. So quotas can speed things up, but also only goes.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

20. “Looking after their cases properly enough when it comes to allegations of domestic violence or sexual assault. And so it'll be really interesting to see what happens there. when you're actually suing your own government for not following the cases properly.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

21. “To remove stigma from the survivors of gender-based violence over to the perpetrators to believe people who have these reporting cases. And then there are practical situations like, for example, the University of Reykjavik is developing a sort of virtual reality scenario so women who are about to go to court to face people that they are accusing of gender-based violence can actually sort of simulate the courtroom scenario before they have to go and do it. places where they can keep all of the information on their case at one sort of location online. So rather than have to go to all kinds of different points to find out where their case is progressing in the system, they can find it that much easier. So there are different sort of measures like this. And there's a really interesting case right now that's going to the European Court of Human Rights where a number of women in Iceland are actually suing the Icelandic state.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

22. “So, for the sexual violence, as you mentioned, that is something called a Nordic paradox, where throughout all the Nordic countries, we see sort of higher rates of reporting of gender-based violence, which goes against our intuition of what we would think, as you say, of these countries that are seen to be as so strong for women. But we don't really know, is that because there are in real terms more cases like this, or I hope it's because perhaps that is less stigma surrounding coming forward and talking about these issues, that there is a broader legal definition of what constitutes gender-based violence or that there's more trust in the police force so people feel like they can come forward with their stories. And I think all of those things factor in, but obviously as long as we have any gender-based violence, we're not going to be able to achieve gender equality. So we have to remain vigilant to reduce these numbers and to improve the situation. So in Iceland, for example, we're working a lot”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

23. “With this, because sadly, there is still sometimes the impression that it is a women's issue, and therefore when men speak up about it, again, everybody almost listens more, which is a shame, but is often the way that it is. And so having men”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

24. “She hasn't been complaining about this. And then everyone said, Well, what is it her job to be complaining about the lack of female diversity within her own party? Or is it maybe something that the entire party needs to be looking at? And again, there's still this onus that it's up to women to change things. And that's something that I think it doesn't disservice to men as well. I think there's some kind of an assumption there that all men dislike the idea of achieving gender equality or feel threatened by it. And I don't think that that is the case. I think we quite rightly speak up about situations when men need to improve on areas, but there are a great many men who do recognize that gender equality benefits people of all genders, that it is not a zero-sum game where women are trying to gain power at the expense of men, and that in the long run, this is going to help everybody. And I think we really need to have men on board.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

25. “It's absolutely on them to deliver, like everything else. I think, first of all, some senses with women were preaching to the choir. I think that most women want to see further equality. I think most women want to see further equality at home as well. I think most women have stories of being patronized too or worse in the workplace. And as you said, this default that it should be all about women talking or that we need to organize a conference on increased gender diversity in the workplace and it's all women who attend, you know, there's an example in the press in Iceland a few weeks ago. There was a cabinet shuffle and now I'm forgetting the dialogue but there was a newspaper article that criticized one of the cabinet ministers, a woman, for her political party for the fact that she was the only senior woman within this political party running certain situations and said how can”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

26. “I hope in the long term we'll see shifts for the better because I think in the short term we saw an increase say in gender-based violence. We saw that women really disproportionately had to take on the lion's share of not only seeing their own jobs but making sure their children were getting all their homework done and doing all this work. And this World Economic Forum Global Gender Gap Index that Iceland has topped last year in the report said that the pandemic has increased by a whole generation, the number of years it's estimated to take before we achieve gender equality. So in the short term this has been much worse but I'm hoping that in the long term we see that it'll indicate a greater flexibility, especially saying countries like the UK where commuting times can be very long so if we allow more flexibility for people to spend more time at home when they need to and still get their jobs done, I think that that is a positive.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

27. “And just as if it was the most normal thing in the world, which absolutely is and should be. But I remember really noticing it and thinking, I do not think that would have happened in the company where I used to work in the UK.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

28. “I think so. It's a funny example because I spent five years, almost five years working in the UK first before I moved to Iceland. So my closest work experience was in a corporate environment for a FTSE 200 company in the UK. And, you know, my husband never went outside the building where I worked at all, of course. I think occasionally met some of my colleagues at Christmas events or something like that. And then when I moved to Iceland, and as you said, if there was a staff day, people just bring their child in and they hang out with them for the day at work because what else are they going to do? And that was, there was a huge shift there in terms of just acknowledging that sometimes people have families at home. And I also remember the chair of the board of the company where I first worked was breastfeeding her baby while she was chairing this meeting. And it was a software company with, you know, big majority men.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

29. “Different, you know, parenting approaches. So, you know, but he has such a close relationship with our children now. And you talked about the school calling, you know, our children when they're sick or they need something, they're equally as likely to call him as they are to call me if there's a problem. And I think that's really good. You know, at nighttime, if they wake up with a fever, they're equally as likely to call out for their dad as for their mom.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

30. “That is an excellent question. I think you probably have to ask him what he learned, but I certainly learned that it's so fortunate for the children to have two parents who are kind of approaching parenthood in different ways. So there's one small story that I tell in the book about when he was taking his parental leave. And I was working from home, so actually I witnessed this, that he was about to go out for the day with the baby and he had a whole plan for what he was going to do and activities and things he was going to visit. And it was all day. And he had nothing with him as he was leaving the house. He had no nappy bag. He had no food or anything. And I remember thinking, I tried to resist the urge to say something, but I just couldn't stop myself. And I finally said, aren't you need anything with you? And he said, oh, I'm going to buy a banana for him for lunch on the way. And as if that, you know, the banana was the magic cure for any problem that could arise for him all day. And of course they were fine all day. And it's just too...”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

31. “Absolutely. I agree with you 100%, and it's the million dollar question, I suppose, isn't it? Because that is important. And also in Iceland, we see that women still are disproportionately taking up more of the household tasks, even though they're both at work. How do we fix that?”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

32. “But I think that having, for instance, parental leave, that fathers are taking paternity leave starts them from a very early age of getting more of a grasp of what's involved in being the household CEO and running those things. Because when a father is taking his paternity leave, the mother is generally off at work. And so the father knows when the feeding schedules have to be and has to remember that the food is ready at this time or that they don't like to eat this kind of food or that they like to have this song sung to them when their nappies being changed. Just like all of us as parents, they're getting that experience in a very hands-on way.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

33. “I think this is an excellent question and an excellent point, Rosamond. I think that we're seeing a lot of debate, as you said, that men maybe would say, well, I do the dishes just as often as my wife does the dishes. But someone is coordinating that. Someone is remembering the birthday and doing all of those things. And until we see real changes in that, it won't happen. I think part of having more women in the workforce helps with that because there's just, you know, you're both gone all day working. So you both have to come back and coordinate what is happening in the home. But it's something that works in both directions because sometimes we hear women say, well, I have to remind him to do the dishes, but he doesn't do it very well anyway. And, you know, we need to understand that people do things very different ways, of course, and there isn't necessarily a right way or a wrong way. And sort of women have to also be willing to give up some of the power, the influence of being those quote unquote household CEOs.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

34. “That's heavily subsidized as well. So there's a lot more encouragement for women to return to the workforce and to be working there. And that in turn has built a sort of work culture where the work-life balance is much more flexible. So if you are working in an office and you say, look, I'm going to have to leave the office for an hour because my son is doing a ballet recital or it's my daughter's parent teacher interview. Nobody's going to not let you do that. You're not going to have to book a half day's holiday to go and do your parental job. So obviously ice and size is an advantage in that sense as well. You're not going to be spending an hour and a half in traffic to get back to the school to go and see the bad lay recital. But it certainly shows that there is an understanding of the importance of the work-life balance and that the domestic side shouldn't be the exclusive responsibility of the mother, for example.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

35. “Well, that's one of the things exactly that maybe isn't companies doing but is the benefit to companies because it is enabling a broader workforce to be taking part. And Icelandic women have the largest participation in the workforce of the OECD countries. And exactly as you say, part of that reason is because of the subsidized childcare and the parental leave scheme. The parental leave policy is paid by the state. It's not paid by the employers. And it's what's called a use it or lose it scheme, which means that one parent is allocated a certain number of months. The second parent is allocated a certain number of months. And then there's a third chunk that can be split either way. But what that means is that we're not seeing only, say, mothers taking parental leave and we're not seeing employers having small companies, for example, having to foot the bill of paying for a replacement employee and for the person who is on their parental leave. And then once they go into childcare,”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

36. “On its own. Like we have, for example, gender quotas in Iceland, that we have more organizations that are working to increase networking opportunities for women. And I think a huge area that's very important as well is investment opportunities for women. Certainly in Iceland, you know, we're seeing that only 11% of the largest funds in Iceland are controlled by only 11% women. And the large majority of investment funds go to companies that are run by men or maybe a few more that have one woman involved in them. So, you know, kind of he controls the pocketbook is also controlling a little bit where the money is going. So we need to be focused on that as well. But it's going to improve the bottom line for everybody.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

37. “Well, the benefit to business is to the bottom line. I mean, and I don't need to go through all the statistics and you can look them up with the World Economic Forum and McKinsey and Company and all this, but companies that are more diverse and not just in terms of gender, but in all forms of diversity are more successful companies. And the employees are happier and the employees stay longer. There are just many ways in which we need to be constantly vigilant and aware of this because I think as human beings, our default when we're building teams, when we're building organizations, our default is to look to people who are like us, whether that's a similar background or education or ethnicity or gender and really what we need to be doing is looking outside of those boxes, is increasing the diversity of the companies. And sometimes, as we've shown in Iceland, we need outside structures in place to encourage that if it's not moving fast enough.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

38. “Exactly. I think it's a says something about the state of gender equality here as well. And so that's the reason I called the book The Secrets of the Spracker is that it's comprised of a lot of discussions with women throughout the country in all walks of life. And hopefully their stories are revealing some insight into why gender equality can benefit all of us.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

39. “Yes, sprakar is a very old and obscure Icelandic word. It's even a word that native Icelandic speakers don't know necessarily. And it means outstanding women. And I love the fact that we have a word in Icelandic that is used exclusively to describe women and in a positive way. Because I can't think of very many words in English that are used to exclusively describe women in a positive way. I can't, in fact, think of any words. So I think this is something I'm trying to bring into the English language a bit.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

40. “Go of certain things and just decide what we want to let go of. And, you know, I emphasize, of course, that my husband and I are. In this”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

41. “Became president of Iceland in 2016. There was a whole lot that happened in between that meeting and him becoming president, but I'll just jump forward to that part.”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

42. “I grew up just outside of Ottawa, the capital of Canada. In the country Studied at the University of Toronto. And then moved to England”

    2024-10-06 · Intelligence Squared · Archive: Secrets of the Sprakkar, with Eliza Reid · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT