11 Inspiring Women to Know From Iceland

On 24 October 1975, Icelandic women did not go to their paid jobs nor did they do any housework or child-rearing at home.

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 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.

• The goal was to have as many Icelandic women as possible participate; approximately 99,000 women participated, which was 90% of half of the population .
• As well, some women could have been fired for going on strike but could not be denied a day off.
• After the law was brought in, more than 90% of fathers used their paternal leave.
• Women were also more successful in running for political office, with the proportion of women in parliament rising to a record 43%.
• Collections consist of Participedia entries that share common traits, such as association with a large-scale initiative, institution, or specific topic.

On that day, 90 percent of the female population in Iceland didn’t show up for work, didn’t change a dirty diaper, didn’t pick up an iron, or step into the kitchen. The day has been referred to as the “Long Friday” by many men, because it was the first time they had to take care of their children and do household tasks like cleaning and cooking, and it was found to be a very long day. Businesses had to close because men had to stay home with their children since many facilities such as schools were closed due to the lack of workforce that day.

Enter the herring girls, who were referred to as “girls” no matter their age. They, too, came by the thousands from across Iceland, fulfilling a role so crucial that the industry couldn’t have succeeded without them. Iceland passed a law in 2010 requiring company boards to have a minimum of 40% of women or men. In 2021, women occupied about 42% of managerial roles and 40% of parliamentary positions in Iceland. Fortunately, in Iceland, there’s a ministry to complacency on gender equality. The ministry of gender equality, as in Harry Potter, is magic.

Icelanders exercise more than people from any other European country

Iceland’s largest maritime museum, it occupies five former fishery buildings, including a salting station that also served as a women’s dormitory, a fish meal and oil factory, and a reconstructed boathouse. Overall, the Nordic country has a near perfect score on the gender-equality scale. For eight years, the World https://thegirlcanwrite.net/hot-icelandic-women/ Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report ranked Iceland No. 1 on its list of countries actively closing gaps in gender equality.

Icelandic CrossFit Women – Björk Odinsdóttir

The Iceland women’s national football team played its first https://edspace.american.edu/sofiaschmidt/category/online-dating-tips/ game on 20 September 1981, facing Scotland. Bryndís Einarsdóttir scored Iceland’s first ever goal in the 2–3 loss, with Ásta B. The women’s national football team has successfully qualified for and competed in the UEFA Women’s Championship’s in 2009, 2013, and 2017.

“To the girls, to the women, to the mothers, to the daughters, who hear the music bubbling within, please speak up. We need to hear your voices.” Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at for further information. NPR’s Leila Fadel speaks with Eliza Reed, the first lady of Iceland, about her new book and why her country is a great place to be a woman.

The event was unprecedented because of the huge backing it had among women at the time, credited in part to the fact that the organizers chose to call it “a day off” instead of a strike. It is believed that as many as 90% of all Icelandic women participated in the strike, by either not showing up to work or not performing any housework. https://blog.hootsuite.com/snapchat-emoji-meanings/ In the capital of Reykjavik, an estimated 25,000 women gathered to protest. Since then, Icelandic women have gone on strike an additional five times, most recently in 2018. The year 1975 had been dubbed the International Women’s Year by the United Nations. During the World Conference the same year, the World Plan of Action for the Implementation of the Objectives of the International Women’s Yearwas adopted. At that time in Iceland, about 50% of women in the working age group worked outside the home and were also believed to do most of the housework.

By a lot of measures, Iceland is the best place to be a woman. The country has not just one, but three, laws protecting women at work. That doesn’t fly in Iceland, where a law bans gender discriminatory advertising. Plus, the country was the first to ban strip clubs for feminist reasons. When I asked Rakel about the future of women’s history in Iceland, her first thought was not the future of an academic field; she instead shared her thoughts on the state of equality and activism today. The Icelandic government has pledged to close the gender pay gap by 2022.

Those women who worked outside of the home in Iceland made less than 60 percent of the wages that men made. Women were also often unable to get jobs because they did most, if not all, of the housework and child rearing. The goal of the strike was to protest the wage discrepancy and unfair employment practices by demonstrating the crucial roles of women in Icelandic society. Of course, this work of refocusing our historical awareness and filling in the archival gaps is not unique to Iceland.

An outpouring of women on to the streets was, by then, a well-trodden form of activism. In 1970, tens of thousands of women had protested on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan. In the UK, that same year, 20,000 women marched in Leeds against discriminatory wages. But what made Iceland’s day of protest on 24 October 1975 so effective was the number of women who participated. Teachers, nurses, office workers, housewives put down tools and didn’t go to work, provide childcare or even cook in their kitchens. Iceland is arguably one of the world’s most gender-equal countries. It is listed as number one in the 2016 best places to work by The Economist’s women index.