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Two Decades of Gender Troubles in Iceland: The Translation of Gender, Differences, and the Uncertainty of Meaning

Katrín Harðardóttir, University of IcelandFollow

Abstract

When “gender” was translated to Icelandic in 1998 as kyngervi, the notion of performative gender had been circulating in Icelandic academia for a little over a year. The introduction and dissemination of the term inside academia then became quite rapid, with the help of diverse professional fields such as art, literary, history and gender studies, but criticism on the translation did not appear until well into the second decade of the twenty-first century, when it was pointed out that the translated term conveys a difference between “sex” and “gender,” with the possible consequence of perpetuating this dichotomy although it had been under scrutiny within English speaking feminist debates since the beginning of the 1990s. Notwithstanding this difference, the term had by then gained ground in academia. It was widely used in feminist and queer activism, and it had found its way into public institutions and regulations. This article sheds light on how key terms travel in translation and possibly break barriers between disciplines and people. What has the confusion between the signifier and the signified led to, given that the notion of performative gender—as a notion emphasizing a socially constructed reality rather than a biological given—has gained ground and come to be widely accepted in Icelandic society? Can we possibly say that the term’s translation history is in itself a proof of Judith Butler’s theory, since the unstable meaning of the sign does not seem to have much to do with its acceptance? It is rather the repetition and iteration of a unique Icelandic queering of the concept that has secured its dissemination.

Recommended Citation

Harðardóttir, Katrín. 2024. "Two Decades of Gender Troubles in Iceland: The Translation of Gender, Differences, and the Uncertainty of Meaning." Journal of Feminist Scholarship 24 (Spring): 49-64. 10.23860/jfs.2024.24.04.