Exploring Life on the Remote Faroe Islands, Where Men Outnumber Women

“Faroese men are traditional, but the women are more modern,” remarks Òlavur, a resident of Skálafjørður in the Faroe Islands, Denmark. “She doesn’t even knit.” The 22 year-old is one of many men Andrea Gjestvang met while working on her new book, Atlantic Cowboy. Published by GOST, it’s a rich monograph documenting the rural communities of the Faroes, where a focus on traditional gender roles and male-dominated industry have caused a gender imbalance amongst the population.

When the Norwegian photographer first started working on the project in 2014, men in the Faroes outnumbered women by almost 2,000 (the population then was less than 50,000, today it’s just over), as women left to study in Copenhagen and other European cities. “You can study teaching or nursing, but if you want something more academic or creative you go abroad,” observes Gjestvang. “Then you go back and there’s no job for you.” Understandably, many don’t return.

The island is a largely Christian nation – incidentally, also the last Nordic region to introduce same-sex marriage – and migration has seen men in the fishing and farming communities adopt different family units, often living with a brother or a parent.

In Gjestvang’s photographs, these two distinctive arenas – work and home – are represented in blood-stained still lifes and intimate portraits of domesticity, understored by images of the vast, sometimes intense landscape. She spoke to VICE about modern challenges to masculinity, and how the gender deficit informs relationships and dating.

VICE: When did you first learn about the gender imbalance in the Faroe Islands? Andrea Gjestvang: I randomly met an author in a bar in Berlin, who talked about this problem of women leaving. I was curious and surprised – it’s part of the Nordic region, where we are mostly liberal and proud of being “in front” when it comes to gender equalities – so I went in 2014 and just drove around. Quite soon I came across these informal meeting places, especially the harbours, where I found young men hanging out, drinking beers or chatting.

**What were the most common concerns or anxieties people spoke about?
**The older men – farmers, fishermen or retired – were quite happy about their situation. They’ve had long lives on fishing boats and the freedom that comes with being on your own. Many sought alternative family relationships, living with mothers, brothers or sisters, their own little group. But they were concerned about the younger generation and how life in villages could continue if there’s a lack of women. Younger men complained that “all the girls I went to school with are gone” – it’s not exactly true, there are a lot of women in the Faroe Islands, of course – but they’d maybe started fishing and wanted to stay there, but didn’t know how they could have a family, or if a woman would be willing to move there.

**It’s potentially quite a sensitive topic. How did you navigate these conversations and gain trust?
**I grew up on a big farm so can talk about sheep and the quality of the soil, I also grew up with this mentality of talking about the weather, the neighbours… So we spent a lot of time talking about the weather, the neighbours, the sheep, then eventually about their expectations in life, love and about solitude. Some were quite philosophical, others were more “that’s just how it is”, which I think also says a lot.

How entrenched is that attitude, and more generally the culture of women moving away? There’s a certain sadness – one guy was living with his brother and father, the mother and sister had gone to Denmark – but also it starts early. When they’re 15 or 16, many kids go to Denmark to attend one year of school, but more girls than boys do that. A lot of boys quit school at this age and go fishing with their father, uncle, or grandfather. Society has changed and more men study, but there’s these years of fishing. I spoke to some academics, and apparently it’s more common for males to continue the life their forefathers started, on a farm in some faraway place for example. They wouldn’t see a reason to move somewhere else, whereas women don’t feel the same responsibility.

**You were visiting over a period of six years. What changes did you observe?
**It’s hard to see how a society changes in six years, it’s not much time. I know it has changed after COVID – more people have come back, young families and more women – that’s a good thing. The change I felt much more was feeling at home there.

**And in regards to the long term, was there any sense of things being resolved, as it were?
**It’s different if you talk to the men or politicians – politicians have their own suggestions. Certainly the possibilities to study in the Faroe Islands are getting bigger, but it’s still very focused on traditional work. One of the men I discussed this with a lot, he was living with his mother in the far north, and was like “let’s see what happens”. It’s very much that mentality.

They are used to not being in control of everything, they live in an environment where they are dependent on the weather.

After I finished my work, I saw he had met a woman from another town who moved in with him. The [other] young men want that, but they’re also not willing to give up their lifestyle – going fishing for three months… When we discussed it on a more political level, with what’s going to happen in these communities, they were worried and discussed it in a more advanced way, but in their own lives they weren’t worried. I mean, there are women there.

Atlantic Cowboy is out now on GOST.