Un large national strike for gender equality. In the country closest to achieving gender equality. Tuesday 24 October 2023 Icelandic women, including the Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir, and with them non-binary people, will abstain from work, whether paid or unpaid. Arms crossed from morning to evening: no office, therefore, but also no stoves and washing machines. The strike in Iceland it has been organised to bring attention to the gender pay gap (the so-called gender pay gap) but also on sexual and gender violence. Two sides, say the Icelanders, of the same coin.
Iceland, women’s strike for gender equality: the first since the legendary Kvennafrí in 1975
The women’s strike for equal pay and against gender violence is the first since October 24, 1975, when 90% of Icelanders abstained from work on a day that went down in history. A whole day free. Without washing machines and stoves, without children to look after and clothes to iron. Jobless. They didn’t use the term strike then, but “women’s day off”, in Icelandic Kvennafrí. Just 5 years later Iceland had Europe’s first female president, a single mother Vigdis Finnbogadottir. She herself said that she would never have become one if it had not been for that strike in October 1975.
And yet according to the organizers of this strike, some of whom also took part in the 1975 strike, the fundamental request of valuing women’s work, advanced then, is dissatisfied 48 years later.
The gender gap and sexual violence in Iceland
Iceland is a country considered a champion of equality, tops the World Economic Forum’s 2023 global gender gap ranking for the 14th consecutive year. Yet in some professions Icelandic women still earn 21% less than men and over 40% of women have experienced gender-based sexual violence.
Strike organizers also say jobs traditionally associated with women, such as cleaning and care, continue to be undervalued and underpaid.
«Paradise of equality? It is not so”
«They talk about us, they talk about Iceland, as if we were a paradise for equality», said Freyja Steingrímsdóttir, one of the organizers of the strike and communications director of the BSRB, the Icelandic Federation of Public Workers. «But in a paradise of equality there should not be a 21% wage gap and 40% of women suffering sexual or gender-based violence in their lifetime. This is not what women around the world are fighting for.”
Indeed, precisely because of its global reputation, Iceland has the responsibility “to live up to these expectations”.
Not by chance the strike slogan is “And you call this equality?” (“Kallarðu þetta jafnrétti?”). The day of protest was planned by around 40 different organisations. Who called on women and non-binary people across the country to not do any paid or unpaid work, including domestic tasks at home, “to demonstrate the importance of their contribution to society.”
Icelandic Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir. She will also participate in the strike on October 24, 2023 (Photo by Sergii Kharchenko/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
Iceland on strike? Women who prepare everything in advance to avoid problems for men
But some of them, to prevent the day without their work from being too traumatic for men and to make sure that everything works well anyway, have started to arrange things in advance.
«“Let’s make sure everything works well’ is the mentality we’re stuck in and need to get out of”», said Steingrímsdóttir. “For one day it’s not our problem, so let’s not try to make things easier for them.”
At least 25,000 people are expected to attend an event in central Reykjavík and many more will take part in 10 other events across the country. It is expected that it will be the largest women’s strike ever organized in Iceland.
Non-binary people and the fight against patriarchy itself
As for the non-binary people among the strike members… «Let’s unite our struggles because we all belong fighting the same system, we are all under the influence of patriarchy», said Steingrímsdóttir.
The strike calls for the gender pay gap to be closed by publishing the salaries of workers in female-dominated professions and for action to be taken against sexual and gender-based violence, with greater attention to the perpetrators.
What is the link between equal pay and violence against women
The monetary value of a woman in the workplace it has consequences on the status of women in society as a result it is also linked to sexual violence.
«We are now trying to connect the dots, saying that violence against women and the undervalued work of women in the labor market are two sides of the same coin and they influence each other», explained Drífa Snædal, who is part of the executive committee of the women’s strike and is a spokesperson for Stígamót, a counseling and education center on sexual violence.
When it comes to sexual crimes, Icelandic women still have no access to the justice system. “But women’s patience is exhausted.”
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