Iceland’s prime minister and women across the volcanic island nation went on strike on Tuesday to push for an end to unequal pay and gender-based violence.
Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir said she would stay home as part of the “women’s day off,” and expected other women in her Cabinet would do the same.
“We have not yet reached our goals of full gender equality and we are still tackling the gender-based wage gap, which is unacceptable in 2023,” she told news website mbl.is. “We are still tackling gender-based violence, which has been a priority for my government to tackle.”
Iceland is regarded as one of the world’s most progressive countries in terms of gender equality and has topped the World Economic Forum’s gender gap index 14 years in a row.
We’re 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
But in some industries and professions, women earn at least 20 per cent less than Icelandic men, according to Statistics Iceland.
Forty per cent of Icelandic women experience gender-based and sexual violence in their lifetime, a University of Iceland study found.
“We’re 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 Freyja Steingrímsdóttir, a strike organiser and the communications director for the Icelandic Federation for Public Workers.
“Female-led professions such healthcare services and childcare are still undervalued and much lower paid,” Steingrímsdóttir told Reuters.
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Tuesday’s walkout, under the slogan “Do you call this equality?” is being billed as the biggest since Iceland’s first such event on October 24, 1975, when 90 per cent of women refused to work, clean or look after children, to voice anger at discrimination in the workplace. The following year Iceland passed a law guaranteeing equal rights irrespective of gender.
The original strike inspired similar protests in other countries including Poland, where women boycotted jobs and classes in 2016 to protest a proposed abortion ban.
Schools and the health system, which have female-dominated workforces, said they would be heavily affected by the walkout. National broadcaster RUV said it was reducing television and radio broadcasts for the day.