{"id":90830,"date":"2026-05-24T01:46:44","date_gmt":"2026-05-24T01:46:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/90830\/"},"modified":"2026-05-24T01:46:44","modified_gmt":"2026-05-24T01:46:44","slug":"exploring-life-on-the-remote-faroe-islands-where-men-outnumber-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/90830\/","title":{"rendered":"Exploring Life on the Remote Faroe Islands, Where Men Outnumber Women"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cFaroese men are traditional, but the women are more modern,\u201d remarks \u00d2lavur, a resident of Sk\u00e1lafj\u00f8r\u00f0ur in the Faroe Islands, Denmark<\/a>. \u201cShe doesn\u2019t even knit.\u201d The 22 year-old is one of many men Andrea Gjestvang<\/a> met while working on her new book, Atlantic Cowboy<\/a>. Published by GOST, it\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\"ViewView of the small town Vidareidi<\/p>\n

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\u2019s just over), as women left to study in Copenhagen<\/a> and other European cities. \u201cYou can study teaching or nursing, but if you want something more academic or creative you go abroad,\u201d observes Gjestvang. \u201cThen you go back and there\u2019s no job for you.\u201d Understandably, many don\u2019t return.<\/p>\n

\"ThreeThree friends take a break during a sheep slaughtering sessiom at Paetur\u2019s farm in Kaldbaksbotnur.<\/p>\n

The island is a largely Christian nation \u2013 incidentally, also the last Nordic region to introduce same-sex marriage \u2013 and migration has seen men in the fishing and farming communities adopt different family units, often living with a brother or a parent.<\/p>\n

In Gjestvang\u2019s photographs, these two distinctive arenas \u2013 work and home \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

\"Hjalmar,Hjalmar, his shirt stained with blood during sheep slaughtering <\/p>\n

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 \u2013 it\u2019s part of the Nordic region, where we are mostly liberal and proud of being \u201cin front\u201d when it comes to gender equalities \u2013 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.<\/p>\n

\"Fro\u0301\u00f0iFro\u0301\u00f0i rests on a slaughtered whale <\/p>\n

**What were the most common concerns or anxieties people spoke about?
**The older men \u2013 farmers, fishermen or retired \u2013 were quite happy about their situation. They\u2019ve 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\u2019s a lack of women. Younger men complained that \u201call the girls I went to school with are gone\u201d \u2013 it\u2019s not exactly true, there are a lot of women in the Faroe Islands, of course \u2013 but they\u2019d maybe started fishing and wanted to stay there, but didn\u2019t know how they could have a family, or if a woman would be willing to move there.<\/p>\n

\"AfterAfter hours soaking in a hot tub, a group of friends party into the morning on the little village Mykines. From the right: Oluf (18) with his girlfriend Ronja (18), Rogni (26), Odin (25) and Anna Maria (25).<\/p>\n

**It\u2019s potentially quite a sensitive topic. How did you navigate these conversations and gain trust?
**I grew up on a big farm<\/a> 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\u2026 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 \u201cthat\u2019s just how it is\u201d, which I think also says a lot.<\/p>\n

\"peoplepeople gathering for an outdoor concert at the water\u2019s edge during G! Festival, a music festival that takes place every summer in the small town Sy\u00f0rug\u00f8ta, Faroe Islands.<\/p>\n

How entrenched is that attitude, and more generally the culture of women moving away?\u00a0There\u2019s a certain sadness \u2013 one guy was living with his brother and father, the mother and sister had gone to Denmark \u2013 but also it starts early. When they\u2019re 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\u2019s these years of fishing. I spoke to some academics, and apparently it\u2019s more common for males to continue the life their forefathers started, on a farm in some faraway place for example. They wouldn\u2019t see a reason to move somewhere else, whereas women don\u2019t feel the same responsibility.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe interior from a boat repair workshop in Torshavn, Faroe Islands<\/p>\n

**You were visiting over a period of six years. What changes did you observe?
**It\u2019s hard to see how a society changes in six years, it\u2019s not much time. I know it has changed after COVID \u2013 more people have come back, young families and more women \u2013 that\u2019s a good thing. The change I felt much more was feeling at home there.<\/p>\n

**And in regards to the long term, was there any sense of things being resolved, as it were?
**It\u2019s different if you talk to the men or politicians \u2013 politicians have their own suggestions. Certainly the possibilities to study in the Faroe Islands are getting bigger, but it\u2019s still very focused on traditional work<\/a>. One of the men I discussed this with a lot, he was living with his mother in the far north, and was like \u201clet\u2019s see what happens\u201d. It\u2019s very much that mentality.<\/p>\n

\"PeoplePeople gather at a temporary amusement park on the harbour in Va\u0301gur <\/p>\n

They are used to not being in control of everything, they live in an environment where they are dependent on the weather.<\/p>\n

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\u2019re also not willing to give up their lifestyle \u2013 going fishing for three months\u2026 When we discussed it on a more political level, with what\u2019s going to happen in these communities, they were worried and discussed it in a more advanced way, but in their own lives they weren\u2019t worried. I mean, there are women there.<\/p>\n

Atlantic Cowboy is out now on GOST.<\/p>\n

\"YoungYoung men take an evening swim in the cold waters during the G! music festival in Sydrugota. The G! Festival is an outdoor music festival which takes place on the beach of the village which is also home to several Faroese musicians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cFaroese men are traditional, but the women are more modern,\u201d remarks \u00d2lavur, a resident of Sk\u00e1lafj\u00f8r\u00f0ur in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":90831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[26,43,47861,4872,2542,2577],"class_list":["post-90830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-faroe-islands","tag-denmark","tag-faroe-islands","tag-framed","tag-men","tag-photography","tag-photos"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116627032507414696","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/90831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}