Letter from Iceland #6
The "feminist utopia where women go on strike" edition
Greetings from the feminist paradise of Iceland! Where next week, Tuesday, 24 October, women and non-binary folks will march into the Reykjavík city centre en masse to demand equal rights with men.
Say what?
I know, you probably thought we had the gender equality thing all sewn up and in the bag, didn’t you?
After all, Icelandic women made history forty-eight years ago when 90 percent of them walked off their jobs and out of their households to bring attention to the importance of their contribution to society. It was radical. They flatly refused to work, whether in the workplace or in the home, leaving everything from answering phones in receptions, to childcare, to the men. The country effectively shut down. Radio announcers read news bulletins with the sounds of children playing in the background. Pylsur (Icelandic hot dogs) sold out in the entire country as men scrambled to feed themselves and their kids. Institutions were paralyzed. It is estimated that 25,000 women came together in downtown Reykjavík on 24 October 1975 (the population of Iceland was 217,000 at that time), making it one of the biggest demonstrations in Icelandic history.
Granted, this did not change things for Icelandic women overnight, yet it paved the way for some monumental events. Five years later, Iceland had the first democratically-elected female head of state in the world—Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, who is still the longest-serving female head of state in history. Eight years later, a women's-only party, the Women's Alliance, won its first seats in parliament, remaining there until 1998 when it merged with two other left-wing parties to form the Social Democratic Alliance.
So why a women’s strike in 2023?
Actually, this will be the sixth such event held since 1975. See, despite Iceland being hailed as a gender-equality utopia, particularly on social media and in the foreign press, the at-home reality is quite different. Sure, there have been some big strides made, including the passing of a law in 2013 stipulating that the boards of companies with more than 50 employees must be made up of at least 40% of each gender, another in 2018 making it illegal to pay women less than men, and one in 2022 making it easier than before for women to divorce an abusive partner.
Yet while this looks grand on the surface, said laws are not always followed. In 2020, a survey showed that the set gender quota for board members had never been fulfilled by any company, despite the passing of the 2013 law. In 2022, women earned on average 9.1% less than men. In the first six months of 2023, the National Commissioner of Police received just over three calls per day reporting domestic violence (in a country of 380,000 people), with nearly 70% of victims women. Laws on restraining orders exist, yet abusive partners repeatedly violate restraining orders with impunity, turning the lives of their victims into a living hell.
In the same period, January-June 2023, there was one sexual assault on average per day reported to police, with women listed as victims in 172 of 179 cases. Meanwhile, the Icelandic judicial system is notoriously lenient when it comes to prosecuting, and especially convicting, sexual offenders—so much that, in 2021, nine Icelandic women sued the Icelandic state before the European Court of Human Rights for botching investigations into their sexual assault cases, thereby denying them the right to a trial. That same year, 13 women’s organizations released a video stating that only 49% of rape cases in Iceland are submitted to the state prosecutor, 17% result in indictments, and 13% in convictions.
Furthermore, a recent Gallup study revealed that the division of labour in Icelandic households is still very uneven, and that women are overwhelmingly responsible for the emotional labour/mental load in the home.
It is these and other issues that have now prompted 37 women’s associations to join forces for the 2023 women’s strike, urging women around Iceland to lay down work and their household duties and to assemble on Arnarhóll hill in the old city centre of Reykjavík.
Tuesday 24 October is the day. In closing, I give you the original feminist anthem that Icelandic women have been singing since 1975, that urges women to fight to become strong role models for their children, that poses the questions þori ég, vil ég, get ég (“dare I, will I, can I?”) and answers them: Já ég þori, get og vil (“Yes I dare, I will and I can”).
Áfram stelpur! ✊
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Go ladies, go!! I'll protest along, in the Netherlands.