On 24 October 1975, Icelandic women did not go to their paid jobs nor did they do any housework or child-rearing at home.
The ideal body type among US women is shifting away from «thin,» with increasing numbers striving for a «toned» physique, according to 2018 research by the University of Missouri-Kansas City. This can also be seen in the «strong not skinny» movement which has been championed on social media in recent years and has been tagged 9.5 million times on Instagram. Davidsdottir told Insider she found fitness culture for women to be very different in both countries. Today, on International Women’s Day, we would like to take the opportunity to introduce you to five empowering women in Iceland.
- Certain circumstances in Iceland contributed to this unique decision, and we shall take a closer look at them here.
- 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 .
- But Davidsdottir thinks the culture is gradually changing in the States, and it’s becoming more normal to be a muscular woman.
- I was surprised at how progressive parliament was back about this topic.
Both farming and trading were family businesses, and women were often left in charge when their husbands were away or dead. There is also evidence that women could make a living in commerce in the Viking Age. Merchants’ scales and weights found in female graves in Scandinavia suggest an association between women and trade.
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.
Women’s suffrage
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 Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report ranked Iceland No. 1 on its list of countries actively closing gaps in gender equality.
How Iceland’s Herring Girls Helped Bring Equality to the Island Nation
The Norwegian fleets brought jobs, too, from staffing fishing boats to building docks to salting herring for sale in markets across the world. TheInternational Women’s Strike, a global version inspired by the Icelandic strike, spread in 2017 and 2018. It’s not uncommon to find our gyms here packed out from 6am through to 8pm.
«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.
Looking back at the events of that day, she has reported hot iceland women remembering hearing children in the background of radio broadcasts, as fathers had brought their children with them to work. Iceland is yet to become the first country in the world with a majority women parliament. Currently, women hold 30 of the 63 seats in the Icelandic Parliament, following a recount in the 2021 election. In Iceland women are paid about 18% less than their male counterparts, if working in the same job with the same level of experience; for comparison, the average European wage gap is 16.2%. Excluding ranking, position, and hours worked, the average annual income for women is 28% less than men. At the current rate, women will not experience equal pay until 2068.
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 https://www.redbubble.com/life/love-puns/ 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.
Some reports even state that Icelandic grocery stores ran out of hot dogs in response to the strike, as men tried to feed their hungry children. Iceland is arguably one of the world’s most feminist countries, having been awarded this status in 2011 for the second year in a row. Iceland was the first country to have a female president, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, elected in 1980.
An outpouring of women on to the streets was, by then, a well-trodden form of activism. In 1970, tens of thousands of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JwCSLwxaA7A 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.