Icelandic women strike for economic and social equality, 1975 Global Nonviolent Action Database

Ingibjörg H. Bjarnason, the principal of Kvennaskólinn (‘The Women’s School’) became the first woman to hold a seat in Alþingi in 1922. “As early as 1882, widows and women of independent means had received the right to vote in municipal elections, and in 1907, this right was extended to all women,” writes Stefan Jonasson, editor of Lögberg-Heimskringla. Alþingi voted to extend women’s voting and candidacy rights to parliamentary elections in 1911, but this was struck down—twice—by the Danish king, until Kristján X relented in 1915. Iceland became an independent state under the Danish crown in 1918, and two years later, all age and income restrictions were lifted, giving all Icelandic women equal voting rights in 1920. The campaign lasted only one day and all participants were a part of the strike for the entire day.

However, by 1975, there were only three parliamentarians (5% of all parliamentarians), and there had only been nine female parliamentarians in total. After the 1975 Icelandic women’s strike, more women were elected. A look at Iceland’s historic https://thegirlcanwrite.net/icelandic-women/ labor systems helps convey the tremendous significance of the herring era. Between 1490 and the late 1800s, poor, landless people in Iceland were subjected to vistarband, a law that obligated them to find work on farms and essentially live as indentured servants. Landowners were required to provide food and shelter, but only men were paid wages. Workers were not allowed to leave the farm without its owner’s permission. No ad may belittle any gender or go against the country’s fierce mission to achieve gender equality.

• For eight years, the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report ranked Iceland No. 1 on its list of countries actively closing gaps in gender equality.
• Even more dramatic evidence of attitude change is that Vigdis Finnbogadottir was elected the first female president of Iceland five years after the strike .
• This was the first time a women’s strike of nearly all the women of the country was used in Iceland .

Iceland has had a woman as either president or prime minister for 20 of the last 36 years. In the 2016 parliamentary election covering 63 seats, 30 women were elected, increasing the number of females in the Alþingi to over 47%. Compared to the United States which sits at twenty percent, Iceland was said to have the “most equal parliament” in the world when women won 48% of the seats in 2016. After the law was brought in, more than 90% of fathers used their paternal leave. Research found that this put men and women on a more equal footing in the workplace, but did not seem to affect the pay gap. In 2012, there were plans to gradually increase the leave to be five months for each parent, plus two months of transferable leave, by 2016.

In 2009, Iceland became the first country to completely close the gender gap in education and health. And in 2016, Iceland was 87% of the way to closing the gender gap in all sectors.

A Better World Is Possible: The 1975 Icelandic Women’s Strike

The rest of the fields are either numbers, dates, or fixed options—we call these ‘Fixed Data’ fields. While viewing a case, method, or organization entry, click the red pen icon in the bottom right-hand corner to add to or amend the entry’s content. “I’m really thankful for our culture in Iceland for how open it is, how women are leading https://pausetobalancetravels.com/women-against-the-meat-grinder-the-armenian-women-campaigning-for-peace/ the way, and I very much want to be part of continuing that,” Davidsdottir said.

How Iceland’s Herring Girls Helped Bring Equality to the Island Nation

Vigdís says she would not have become president without the strike which she said was the “first step for women’s emancipation in Iceland”, which “completely paralysed the country and opened the eyes of many men”. In the year following the strike, Iceland set up the Gender Equality Council, and passed the Gender Equality Act, which prohibited gender discrimination in the workplace and in schools. Though the museum offers a comprehensive history of the herring years, it’s the herring girls themselves who are the stars of the show. The museum hosts salting exhibitions on its front dock, where performers—including some former herring girls—demonstrate how freshly caught herring were gutted, salted and placed in barrels. Accordion music, singing, dancing and some lighthearted theatricality accompany the shows, capturing the lively spirit of the herring boom years. After kids grow up with equal time from parents, gender equality lessons don’t stop. Article 23 of the Act on Equal Status and Equal Rights of Women and Men https://spaceplus.in.th/spain-womens-coach-jorge-vilda-leaves-out-15-players-in-dispute-with-spanish-fa-this-mess-is-hurting-spanish-football-football-news/ mandates that gender equality must be taught in schools throughout all levels of education.

All Things Iceland is the go-to resource to learn about Icelandic history, culture, language and nature from the view http://phopphra.tak.doae.go.th/?p=1972 of an expat. Women that had jobs did not show up for work and those that were normally at home, did not do any housework or child rearing for the whole day. Men had to take their children to work as well as scramble to feed themselves and the kids. Because women were only allowed to get the most elementary education from the established institutions at the time, Icelandic women decided to create their own private schools between 1874 and 1879.

Parliament is expected to pass the bill becoming the first country to make gender wage discrimination illegal. After passing, the government expects the law to roll into effect by 2020 in an effort to close the gender wage gap. The striking women achieved their goal of demonstrating the importance of their work, at all levels from home to workplace, to the well being of the country. While this was their main goal, and it even led to the passage of an equal rights bill, this bill did little to change the wage disparity and employment opportunities for women in the short run. That changed in 1903 but still that means that more than 50 years went by where only men with certain status in society had the right to vote.

She became founding chairperson of the women’s organisation Kvenfélagasambands Íslands in 1930. Next is the random fact of the episode and I will end off with the Icelandic word of the day. I found a lot of information on the Women’s history Archives website. The Archives was founded in January of 1975 by Anna Sigurðardóttir, Else Mia Einarsdóttir and Svanlaug Baldursdóttir. Since 1996 it has been a special entity within the National Library of Iceland. There is so much information there and I will have links to the website in the show notes if you want to check it out. Her report from Reykjavik, On Assignment, airs at 10.40pm on Tuesday on ITV.

The strike lasted until midnight that night, when the typesetters returned to work on papers for the next day. These papers contained nothing besides articles on the women’s strike.

The Icelandic government has said it aims to close the gender pay gap in Iceland by 2022. In 1881, Iceland extended women’s rights in Iceland by allowing them to vote in local elections for the very first time.