In Iceland, tens of thousands of women and nonbinary people walked off the job in a one-day strike to protest gender inequality. They refused to do any work, including household errands and child care. Even the prime minister of Iceland joined the strike.
The organizers described it as the country’s largest effort to protest workplace inequality in nearly five decades.
Iceland is a global leader in gender equality but still has a long way to go, said Freyja Steingrímsdóttir, a spokeswoman for the Icelandic Federation of Public Workers.
“Iceland is often viewed as some sort of equality paradise,” Steingrímsdóttir said. “If we’re going to live up to that name, we need to move forward and really be the best we can be — and we’re not stopping until full gender equality is reached.”
For 14 years in a row, Iceland has been ranked the best country in the world for gender equality with the World Economic Forum (WEF) assigning it an overall score of 91.2%.
But the strike organizers country is not completely equal. “We are seeking to bring attention to the fact that we’re called an equality paradise, but there are still gender disparities and urgent need for action,” said Steingrimsdottir, one of the strike organizers, Reuters news agency reported.
Iceland PM joins crowd of 100,000 for full-day women’s strike
Iceland’s Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir also joined the huge gathering in the centre of Reykjavík on Tuesday.
“My dream is that we will do that [achieve full gender equality] before 2030, but I know it will take a lot of effort … We have been making changes in legislation when it comes to both of these issues and hopefully we will see us continue to move forward,” she said while speaking to the Guardian.
However, she added that Iceland was doing its best to deal with “huge issues” around the gender pay gap, gender-based violence and sexual harassment.
The strike was acknowledged by government departments. The country’s largest federation of public workers unions, the Federation of the Public Workers Union in Iceland (BSRB), the Icelandic Nurses’ Association and the Icelandic Association of Women’s Associations, also offered full support.
“Women in Iceland are striking today, for the 7th time since the famous #womensdayoff in 1975,” Iceland’s President Gudni Johannesson posted on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Their activism for equality has changed Icelandic society for the better and continues to do so today.”
Iceland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a tweet: “Today we repeat the event of the first full day women’s strike since 1975, marking the day when 90% of Icelandic women took the day off from both work and domestic duties, leading to pivotal change including the world’s first female elected president of a country.”
First full-day strike since 1975
Organizers said that Reykjavík saw its first full-day action of its kind in 48 years with an estimated 100,000 people attending the protest in the capital – more than one-fourth of the country’s total population of 376,000, making it the biggest crowd Iceland has ever seen.
The first such strike happened in 1975 when the streets were packed with the 25,000 women who had descended on the city centre to raise awareness about the “systematic” pay discrimination and gender-based violence. The year marked a pivotal moment in Iceland’s women’s rights movement and contributed to greater gender equality in the country.