Iceland’s first full-day women’s strike in 48 years aims to close pay gap

Miranda Bryant

Tens of thousands of women and non-binary people across Iceland, including the prime minister, are expected to stop work – paid and unpaid – today in the first strike of its kind in nearly half a century.

Organisers hope the women’s strike – whose confirmed participants include fishing industry workers, teachers, nurses and the PM, Katrín Jakobsdóttir – will bring society to a standstill to draw attention to the country’s ongoing gender pay gap and widespread gender-based and sexual violence.

Despite being considered a global leader on gender equality, topping the 2023 World Economic Forum’s global gender gap rankings for the 14th consecutive year, in some professions Icelandic women are still paid 21% less than men, and more than 40% of women have experienced gender-based or sexual violence.

Read the full story here.

Key events

Miranda Bryant

Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, who joined Iceland’s 1975 women’s strike in Reykjavík, said she still remembers the songs performed on the day by the Redstockings, a radical women’s movement.

Giving a rendition of Áfram stelpur (Onward Girls), a bouncy Nordic folk tune, Kolbrún said she and her friends had all bought the vinyl afterwards and learned the songs by heart, which they would sing at parties together.

“These were the songs of my youth,” she says. “These songs have been a uniting element. When we get together as feminists because of this struggle we sing these songs still today.”

Listen here to the song and read the full story.

‘Power of the masses’: the day Iceland’s women went on strike and changed history

Miranda Bryant

When, as a 20-year-old drama student, Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir joined the 1975 women’s strike in Reykjavík, she says she didn’t consider herself a feminist. But it proved to be a day that would change her life for ever.

It marked the moment that Kolbrún, who went on to become part of Iceland’s first gender-equal government as climate minister, became an activist.

“It really influences you when you experience the power of the masses,” she says. “You saw women that you hardly ever see. There were all kinds of women from all walks of life, they were dressed up, you can see in the pictures that it’s a colourful bunch of people even though most of the pictures were black and white.”

Although a lot has changed in women’s rights since 1975 – particularly in Iceland, which is consistently viewed as a world leader in the fight for gender equality – Kolbrún says her feelings on the subject are in many ways much the same as they were then.

Read the full story here.

Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir, 68, former climate minister, now president of the confederation of university graduates in Iceland (BHM). She was at the women’s strike in 1975. Photograph: Miranda Bryant

Here is a photo from last night, as people gathered to make signs ahead of today’s strike.

Preparation of posters ahead of today’s women’s strike in Iceland. Photograph: Heiðrún Fivelstad/Kvennaverkfall, Facebook

Preparations underway for women’s strike meeting

Miranda Bryant

Good morning from Reykjavík!

Preparations are under way at Arnarhóll, the hill in the city centre, where the women’s strike meeting will begin at 2pm local time. Tens of thousands of people are expected to descend on the area, as they did in 1975.

Schools, kindergartens and swimming pools are among the public services closed because of women striking, while some hospitals will be on limited Christmas staffing.

I’m about to join strikers for a “brisk walk” around a nearby lake to get the day started.

Will bring you updates throughout the day.