On Icelandic public radio, only male voices were heard on the air in the early hours of yesterday. Females were waiting for their turn to make themselves heard on the streets of the country. Thousands of women, including the prime minister, and non-binary people across Iceland joined a strike yesterday to end wage inequality and gender-based violence. “We call for the revaluation of jobs dominated by women, such as health services and child care, which are undervalued and much less paid,” says Kristín Ástgeirsdóttir, spokesperson for the Icelandic Feminist Initiative (IceFemIn), which brings together former parliamentarians from La Llista de Dones, a feminist political party active between 1983 and 1999. “We’ve known about the importance of this type of work for a long time, but covid made it even more evident,” she adds.
Iceland is a world leader in gender equality. The island has topped the World Economic Forum’s Global gender gap report for 14 years. The island’s policies have contributed to this. In 2018, a law was passed requiring companies and government agencies to demonstrate that they pay men and women equally.
But much work remains to be done. “Despite the fact that we are known as a ‘paradise of equality’, there are still gender disparities,” assured Reuters Freyja Steingrímsdóttir, organizer of the strike and communications director of the Icelandic Federation of Public Workers. In some industries and professions, women earn 21% less than men, and 40% of Icelandic women have experienced sexual and gender-based violence in their lifetime, according to the University of Iceland. “The theory says that the more gender equality, the less violence, but this is not the case. Gender-based violence is deeply rooted in our patriarchal culture and takes time”, laments Ástgeirsdóttir. This historian, one of the founders of La Llista de Dones, gives as an example the cases of
Under the motto “You call this equality?”, they took to the streets with the aim of equaling or surpassing the participation of the first mobilization of this type in the country, the only one that also occupied an entire day, the 1975. On that occasion 90% of women refused to work, clean or take care of children, to express their indignation at their discrimination. The strike 48 years ago “showed very strong solidarity and was a warning sign”, recalls Ástgeirsdóttir, a feminist activist since the 1970s. She is the one who reviews the achievements achieved: the first president elected in 1980, the aforementioned women’s party (La Llista de Dones) and the feminist pressure exerted on the labor market and the government to achieve the milestones that have turned the country into a reference of equality.
As 48 years ago, women were also asked to delegate unpaid work. The organization suggested that parents take the day off to take care of their children. “The third of the demands of the strike is the so-called third day: the mental burden that many women bear to organize household chores, take care of children and family members…”, the president of the Icelandic Women’s Rights Association (IWRA, in English), Tatjana Latinovic.
The organizing bodies hoped to gather between 20,000 and 50,0000 people (in a country of 366,000 inhabitants). Among them, the Prime Minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, who predicted a long struggle: “All over the world it could take 300 years to achieve gender equality,” she said on public radio Ras 1. “The Prime Minister has recognized that he would not be occupying the position he occupies without the work of the rights movements of those who have fought for the participation of women in politics for more than a hundred years, such as my organization”, affirms Latinovic, of the IWRA. Yesterday it also seemed that the weather was in solidarity with the cause: “The weather is absolutely fantastic”, celebrated Ástgeirsdóttir, who expected a high turnout.
