Reflections

Abstract

The Shetland landscape is populated by individuals whose experiences have come to signify and embody the myth of Shetland womanhood. The stories narrated by women in Shetland continue to be relevant in what is today a modern society struggling to cope with the complexities of the global economy. In most respects women's experience in twenty-first century Shetland mirrors that of women elsewhere in modern western societies, but in Shetland the past continues to serve as a referent of identity. At a time when Shetland is searching for home-made survival solutions, women's narratives are used to engage in a political dialogue about Shetland identity and social change. The woman's world exposed by Shetland women reveals to the feminist scholar a different way of viewing the world and women's place within it. The woman's world was constructed on the interaction of myth and materiality.