DO YOU CALL THIS EQUALITY?

Jackie Marshall NEC recalls women who stood together

Fifty years ago, Icelandic women stopped work for a day to protest against gender inequality.

On 24 October 1975, thousands of the island’s women not only went on strike from their jobs, but also refused to work, cook and look after children for a day, leaving many fathers with no choice but to take their offspring to work.

As the women took part in what was officially called ‘The Day Off’, there were reports of men arming themselves with sweets and colouring pencils to entertain the crowds of overexcited children in their workplaces. With dads forced to cook their kids’ dinners, sausages were suddenly in such demand that shops sold out.

The following year, Iceland’s parliament passed a law guaranteeing equal rights and, in 1980, the country installed in office the world’s first democratically elected female president, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir.

Iceland has regularly celebrated the anniversary of the 1975 protest. Every few years, on 24 October, the nation’s women leave work early. In 2023, they held a second 24-hour strike to protest against persistent gender pay gaps and gender-based violence, and to highlight unpaid work, such as childcare.

This time, 100,000 women and non-binary Icelandic people, including the Prime Minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, campaigned under the banner ‘Do you call this equality?’ and pledged to achieve full gender equality by 2030.

“We are celebrating our foremothers, our role models for equality,” said þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir, the country’s Minister for Foreign Affairs.

“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,” added Freyja Steingrímsdóttir, a strike organiser and the Communications Director for the Icelandic Federation for Public Workers.

With a population of less than 400,000, 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 for 14 years in a row. At the time of the first ‘Day Off’ in 1975, just three of the island’s 63 members of parliament were women. That figure now stands at 28 – almost half of MPs. 

JACKIE MARSHALL
NEC