Women in Iceland: Difference between revisions

Introduction

Iceland is arguably the worlds most feminist place in the world, being given this title in 2011 for the second year in a row. Iceland was the first place to have a female president, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, elected in 1980. As well has having the first female and openly gay head of government, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, elected as prime minister in 2003.

In Iceland 88% of working age women are employed, sixty five percent of students attending university are female, and forty one percent of MPs are women. In Iceland however women still earn about fourteen precent less than men in 2016. Iceland has the highest level of women in the labour market as well as having heavily subsidised child care for women who would like to work, and three month's paid leave for parents of both genders.

Gender Pay Gap

Iceland is arguably the worlds most gender equal nation, sources say. It is listed as number one in the best places to work as a women index. Iceland has been named the most feminist place in the world, as well as being the listed as number one on the gender pay gap index since 2009 . Iceland site at the least gap overall within the gender gap of only 12.6% measured across four categories, health, education, economic participation and opportunity, and political advancement. In Iceland women are paid about eighteen percent less than their male counterparts, which is higher than the average European wage gape of sixteen point two percent, and in 2016 they still earn about fourteen percent less. If measured not including ranking, position, and hours women sit somewhere around making thirty percent less than males in Iceland, suggesting women make about 72 cents to the dollar that a man makes. At the rate the wage gap is increasing in Iceland, at approximately three minutes per year added to what time they would start working for free on the average work day(in 2005 this was 2:08pm, 2010, 2:25pm and 2016, 2:38pm) if they were male, women will not experience equal pay until 2068. If looked at in the view of what point of the year women in Iceland would start to work for free as opposed to their male counterparts it would be from November 10th onward until the end of the year. For the past eight years “Iceland has finished first among 100-plus countries in the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap ranking, which quantifies disparities between men and women in health, politics, education, and employment (the higher a country’s ranking, the smaller its gender disparities).” The Icelandic government has said it aims to close the gender pay gap in Iceland by 2022.

Government

Iceland has had either a women in the position of presidency or prime minister for twenty of the last thirty six years . In the 2016 election thirty women were elected into the parliament, out of the sixty three seats increasing the number of females in the Atheling to over forty seven percent. Compared to the United States which sits at twenty percent .Iceland is now said to have the “most equal parliament” in the world after women won forty eight percent of the seats in parliament in 2016.

Powerful Women

Vigdís Finnbogadóttir 

On June 29,1980 Vigdís Finnbogadóttir was voted in as the first female president of the Iceland, and the fourth president of the republic. She was the first women to be elected into head of state in a national election as well as worlds first democratically elected female president. She stepped down from presidency in 1996, but before returned without opposition into presidency in 1984, 1988, and 1992. Vigdis also was an artistic Director of the Reykjavík Theatre Company, she was a teacher of french at the University of Iceland. As well as being the press officer at the National Theatre of Iceland 1954-1957 and 1961-1964. She aired what is known as amusing lectures, on local television, and trained local tour guides in Iceland.

During her time as president she used her position to focus on youth, support forestry, as well as promote Icelandic language and culture . After her retirement as president in 1996 Vigdis went on to become  “founding chair of the Council of Women World Leaders at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.”. Two years later she was appointed as president of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology.

Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir

In 2003 Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir was elected as the worlds first women Prime Minister of Iceland as well as the worlds first openly lesbian head of government, she held that position for 16 years and used her leadership to attempt to ban strip clubs “explaining it as a necessary measure to bring about justice, which is impossible, as she concluded, when women are treated like commodities.” . Before this Sigurðardóttir was already a very active member for government, in 1978 she was elected into the Althing as a member of the Social Democratic Party. She was named minister of social affairs in 1987 and held the position until 1994. She started her own party in 1994 called National Movement, which joined with the Social Democratic Party, Women’s Alliance and the People’s Alliance in 1999 and in 2000 joined to become the Social Democratic Alliance. On June 27, 2010 Iceland declared same-sex marriage as legal, and Sigurðardóttir and her partner Jónína Leósdóttir were officially married.

Women's Day Off

Since 1975 when the tradition was started, Icelandic women have been going on strike on October twenty fourth every few years, 1975, 2005, 2010, and 2016 to protest the issue of women’s rights in Iceland, “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.”.This included women who worked in paid jobs as well as women doing household duties and taking care of their families, they did this “to demonstrate that what their husbands and bosses had used to take for granted has a high value and should be appreciated.”. The protest was led by a women’s rights group in Iceland organized for International Women’s Year. This included 9 out of 10 Icelandic women, or 90% of the population of women in Iceland. They called this day “women’s day off” in Iceland and were trying to tackle the gender pay gap present in Iceland still today, as well as fight for social and economic equality. In 1975, 2005, 2010, and 2016 women in Iceland walked out in accordance to the time of day that they would stop being paid if their wage was the same as men .

The time of day associated with the time that women would begin to work for free if they got paid the same as their male counterparts. In eleven years less than three minutes have been gained annually to elevate this pay gap. It is thought to have to take 52 years before the gap will be closed, at the rate it is travelling now. In 1975 they left their workplaces at 2:05pm, in 2005, 2:08pm, in 2010, they left at 2:25pm, and at 2016, at 2:38pm, only half an hour later than they did 11 years prior. If viewed from a worldwide perspective, had women from the United States done the same protest in 2016, they would have walked out at 2:12pm, in South Korea, 12:36pm, Pakistan, 10:50am.

The original protest was proposed by The Red Stockings, a radical women’s movement that was founded in 1970. It was an event proposed in relation to the United Nations declaring 1975 as International Women’s Year. Five of the major women’s rights groups in Iceland sent one member of each to start a committee to plan events to celebrate that year. It was originally propose to be a women's strike but was was changed to the name “women’s day off” when some women found the idea of the movement too confrontational, they thought ‘day off’ was a more pleasant way to put it to not only be less confrontational, but also to appeal to the masses and get a higher turnout as well as to get the support of the public.

Most saw this event as a success although one member of The Red Stockings saw it as a missed opportunity. Vigdis Finnbogadottir, the first women president of England, and divorced mother referred to the event having “showed the force and necessity of women - it completely changed the way of thinking.” and also states that had it not been for that initial strike in 1975, she probably never would have made it to presidency.

1975

The first strike in 1975 effected many things, included the closure of schools, due to the fact most teachers were women, no telephone service, and the halt of printing newspapers due to the fact the typesetters were all women at the time. Daycares were mostly closed because the daycare workers were women and men had to take their children to work due to the fact the mothers were not there to take care of them, so many men were forced to take their children to work with them. Easy to cook meals ran out in many stores, as well as sweets and items to distract children. The scale of the event was very large, including twenty five thousand women in a place with just two hundred twenty thousand inhabitants, taking up most ninety percent of the women population in that area during the strike in 1975, in Reykjavik, Iceland’s capital in 1975. Similar yet smaller versions of the protest were said to have taken place all across the country . The strike continued until 12am that day, and then women went back and resumed their jobs the next day. The newspapers the next day contained hardly anything except  articles on the women strike, given that the newspaper workers were women. It is said that in 1975 in Iceland women in the workplace made 60% less than their male counterparts, and many other could not get jobs due to they did most of the housework and raising the kids in the home.

Woman achieved the reaction they wanted to receive, by basically shutting down Iceland for the day, as most jobs such as typesetters and telephone service workers were women. Men referred to this day as "the Long Friday" Vigdis referred to the event saying "What happened that day was the first step for women's emancipation in Iceland, it completely paralyzed the country and opened the eyes of many men.". In the year following the strike Iceland former the Gender Equality Council, and passed an act called the Gender Equality Act which prohibited gender discrimination in the workplace and schools.

2016

On October 24 2016 women left work at 2:38pm, for the 41st anniversary of the original women's day off. Meaning the women have gained only a half an hour more in pay in eleven years, working out to slightly less than three minutes per year.

Conclusion

Although Iceland is known as the most gender equal place on the planet it still has a ways to go to reach gender equality. The was the strikes are going the pay gap is only increasing by three dollars per year. At this rate the gap will not be filled until 2068, more than 50 years from now. Women still make only about eighty percent of what men make, and women are still heavily affected by domestic and sexual violence.