Op-Eds
January 23, 2026
This op-ed by RepresentWomen's Katie Usalis, ‘Every Vote Counts’: What Women Leaders Know About Fixing Broken Political Systems, From Iceland to Washington, was published in Ms. magazine in January 2026. Read an excerpt below.
It was 8 a.m. in Reykjavik, Iceland. As I walked along the harbor, the air felt crisp, steam rising from the water, covering the shoreline in a soft haze. Ahead of me, Harpa Hall glowed suffragist purple against the still-black sky—a quiet reminder that women have always gathered in the dark to build what comes next. From the moment I crossed the threshold of the conference hall, I felt the warmth that rises whenever women gather with purpose, and the energy of women from around the world arriving to confront the most pressing challenges of our time. Day 1 of the 2025 Reykjavík Global Forum on Women Leaders was about to begin.
Over the next 72 hours, I spoke with women leaders about democracy, leadership, activism and power-building. We talked about fear. About childcare. About boys who aren’t sure where they fit in this “new” world. About deadlines and death threats, ranked-choice voting—and the deeper reasons why they keep doing this work despite the challenges.
Amid those conversations, three interviews in particular stayed with me: Liz Berry, a Washington state representative who campaigned with a 6-week-old baby; Eliza Reid, Iceland’s former first lady and author of Secrets of the Sprakkar: Iceland’s Extraordinary Women and How They Are Changing the World; and Alison Comyn, an Irish journalist-turned-senator from a country that’s used proportional representation—a form of ranked-choice voting—for generations.
Taken together, their stories sketch a kind of roadmap: how we change the rules, how we change ourselves and how we do this work together.
Read the complete story on Ms. magazine.
