On Tuesday 24th October, thousands of women across Iceland decided to strike for the day. Protesting the gender pay gap and gender-based violence, women stopped both paid and unpaid work to make a stand. This included Prime Minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, who refused to call a cabinet meeting on the day, stating that she was prioritising ‘showing solidarity with Icelandic women’ and expected her female colleagues to also take part in the strike.
In 2018, ‘the Republic of Iceland became the first country in the world to require companies to pay all employees an equal salary for jobs of equal value or under the same roles, regardless of their gender, ethnicity or sexuality’.
However, despite Iceland’s relatively progressive reputation with regards to women’s rights, organisers of the strike claimed that women’s work still remains undervalued and underpaid; this is evident as Icelandic women still earn 21% less than men in some professions. Figures also show that gender-based violence also still persists, with more than 2/5 of women in Iceland having experienced gender based or sexual violence in their lifetime.
The strike demanded action against this, calling for greater emphasis on those who commit these crimes, as well as the closing of the gender pay gap, by disclosing the salaries of workers in female dominated professions. The strike had an impact on various services and institutions. Some preschools, primary schools, museums, city libraries, and zoos were affected by the strike, with closures and reduced services.
Hospitals, despite the majority of their employees being female, continued to provide emergency services and urgent surgeries. However, Runólfur Pálsson, the director of a hospital where over 80% of employees are women, said that some activities were reduced to allow as many staff as possible to participate in the strike.
This is the first women’s all-day strike since 1975, when 25,000 people protested in the country’s capital, Reykjavík, to highlight the crucial work of women which contributes greatly to Iceland’s economy and society, and to protest gender pay gaps and marginalisation in the workplace. However, the demand for women’s work to be valued equally to that of their male counterparts persists 48 years on.