Iceland’s first lady on the ‘Secrets of the Sprakkar: Iceland’s Extraordinary Women’ : NPR

On 24 October 1975, Icelandic women did not go to their paid jobs nor did they do any housework or child-rearing at home.

It was decided that the women of Iceland would go on strike for one day in order to remind the people of Iceland how important women were to Icelandic society, and to bring attention to the low pay of women . This was the first time a women’s strike of nearly all the women of the country was used in Iceland . Grassroots activism at such a scale unsurprisingly had a significant material impact. iceland most beautiful women Within five years, the country had the world’s first democratically elected female president – Vigdis Finnbogadottir. Now in her 80s, this steely-eyed powerhouse tells me of https://wiselands.vn/tin-tuc/21-289-slovakia-woman-images-stock-photos-vectors.html the impact that day of protest had on her own career trajectory. Iceland has received media attention for its work towards equality in the workplace, especially for its efforts to close the gender wage gap, but Iceland continues to have an unadjusted gender pay gap of 14% between men and women. Toward the beginning of the boom years, the herring girls had capitalized on their sudden and dramatic economic power.

• In 1915, women over 40 were granted the right to vote, and in 1920, the country introduced suffrage for all citizens ages 18 and up.
• The country’s first women’s rights organization formed in 1894 and collected signatures on voting rights petitions.
• Today, observers often cite Iceland as a model of gender parity for other nations to follow.
• When an entry is published for the first time, we machine-translate the Open Text fields into all of the other supported languages.
• Ninety percent of Iceland’s female population participated in the strike.
• The strikers had clearly achieved their goal and demonstrated the undeniable importance of women and their work in Iceland.

On that day, 90 percent of the female population in Iceland didn’t show up for work, didn’t change a dirty diaper, didn’t pick up an iron, or step into the kitchen. The day has been referred to as the “Long Friday” by many men, because it was the first time they had to take care of their children and do household tasks like cleaning and cooking, and it was found to be a very long day. Businesses had to close because men had to stay home with their children since many facilities such as schools were closed due to the lack of workforce that day.

The Equal Status and Equal Rights irrespective of Gender Act mandates equal pay and equal terms of employment for the same jobs or jobs of equal value. The equal pay law requires companies to prove the payment of employees at equal rates for equal work or pay a $385 fine per day. Together these agencies research, advertise, advocate, and check laws on gender equality. https://pozega.eu/italian-women-divided-over-the-prospect-of-far-right-female-premier/ Their goal is to create a legal, cultural, historical, social and psychosocial approach to gender equality. That means from early education through university, which is free, all sports, classes, and forms of schooling must include and practice gender equality.

What is the current mood like in Iceland?

The age of settlement is considered to have ended in the year 930 with the establishment of Alþingi. Women in IcelandA procession in Bankastræti in Reykjavík on July 7th 1915 to celebrate women’s suffrage. The museum director adds, “They had to be ready to start working whenever the ships arrived.

The Role of Women in Research

The Norwegian fleets brought jobs, too, from staffing fishing boats to building docks to salting herring for sale in markets across the world. TheInternational Women’s Strike, a global version inspired by the Icelandic strike, spread in 2017 and 2018. It’s not uncommon to find our gyms here packed out from 6am through to 8pm.

«To the girls, to the women, to the mothers, to the daughters, who hear the music bubbling within, please speak up. We need to hear your voices.» Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. NPR’s Leila Fadel speaks with Eliza Reed, the first lady of Iceland, about her new book and why her country is a great place to be a woman.

The event was unprecedented because of the huge backing it had among women at the time, credited in part to the fact that the organizers chose to call it “a day off” instead of a strike. It is believed that as many as 90% of all Icelandic women participated in the strike, by either not showing up to work or not performing any housework. In the capital of Reykjavik, an estimated 25,000 women gathered to protest. Since then, Icelandic women have gone on strike an additional five times, most recently in 2018. The year 1975 had been dubbed the International Women’s Year by https://reelcastle.com/2023/01/25/10-things-you-must-know-about-dating-georgian-women/ the United Nations. During the World Conference the same year, the World Plan of Action for the Implementation of the Objectives of the International Women’s Yearwas adopted. At that time in Iceland, about 50% of women in the working age group worked outside the home and were also believed to do most of the housework.

By a lot of measures, Iceland is the best place to be a woman. The country has not just one, but three, laws protecting women at work. That doesn’t fly in Iceland, where a law bans gender discriminatory advertising. Plus, the country was the first to ban strip clubs for feminist reasons. When I asked Rakel about the future of women’s history in Iceland, her first thought was not the future of an academic field; she instead shared her thoughts on the state of equality and activism today. The Icelandic government has pledged to close the gender pay gap by 2022.

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During her time as president she used her position to focus on youth and to support forestry, while promoting Icelandic language and culture. After her retirement as president in 1996, Vigdis went on to become «founding chair of the Council of Women World Leaders at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University». Two years later, in 1998, she was appointed president of the Unesco World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology. In the wake of the 2008–2011 Icelandic financial crisis, there was a swing towards female leadership.

Thanks to mandatory quotas, almost half of board members of listed companies are now women, while 65% of Iceland’s university students and 41% of MPs are female. Because the pay is significant – 80% of salary up to a ceiling of £2,300 a month – and because it’s on a use-it-or-lose-it basis, 90% of Icelandic fathers take up their paternal leave. This piece of social engineering has had a profound impact on men as well as women. Not only do women return to work after giving birth faster than before, they return to their pre-childbirth working hours faster, too.