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Many women participated in the "Women's Day Off" to protest against wage inequality and other gender-related social injustices.

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Iceland is a Nordic island country located in the middle of the North Atlantic, which in the 1970s had a population of just over 200,000. Nowadays more than 300,000 people live in the country. Iceland is known as the first nation in the world to elect a female president, Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, who served as the leader of Iceland from 1980 to 1994. When Finnbogadóttir was elected president she credited the Icelandic Women's Strike of 1975 as having paved the way for her success:

It is important that we break new paths based upon our experience as women. I am president today as a result of the women's strike in 1975, as a result of the great changes that have occurred in women's position - and I am at the same time a part of this process of change.

The Icelandic Women's Strike took place on 24th October 1975. The strike called for all women in Iceland to take the day off. The aim of the strike was to emphasise that women's work was socially and economically indispensable yet often undervalued. Having originated as an idea among the Icelandic feminist movement known as the Redstocking or Rauðsokkahreyfingin in 1970, the Women's Strike was organised five years later by women belonging to the country's political parties, feminist and women's movement groups, and professional women's organisations. In the lead up to the protest women from these diverse backgrounds formed The Committee for the Women's Day Off, which was responsible for carrying out the strike.
Photograph by Björgvin Pálsson. Courtesy of Reykjavik Museum of Photography.
The Committee drew up a list of demands touching on a range of issues. These included unfair gendered hiring practices, the lack of woman representatives in the Icelandic Trade Union Congress, and farmer's wives not being accepted as full members of the Icelandic Farmer's Union. The Committee also demanded that childcare be made more accessible and affordable, and that the work women did within the home be valued as part of the labour market. By the 1970s approximately half of working aged women in Iceland were gainfully employed in Iceland, however they faced significant wage disparity relative to men and had limited opportunities for advancement in the workplace.

The strike quickly gained international attention. On the day following the Women's Strike, the U.S. newspaper The New York Times described the scenes in Iceland as follows:

The strike-which many Icelandic men treated as a joke when it was first suggested-was reported nearly 100 per cent effective. The biggest problem was communications, with telephone service at a virtual standstill. In addition, newspapers closed because the typesetters are women and theatres shut down because actresses wouldn't work and many schoolchildren were left untaught since 65 per cent of the teachers are women. The national airline had to cancel flights for lack of stewardesses and banks managed to remain open only because executives staffed the counters instead of female tellers.

In essence, without the labour of women on 24th October Iceland was brought to a standstill. The strike was organised efficiently and comprehensively, with nearly 90% of Icelandic women taking part in wide scale collective action. In Reykjavík approximately 25,000 women, a significant portion of the city's 82,000 inhabitants, filled the city's streets. Though protest was concentrated in the country's capital, smaller meetings and demonstrations were held across the country. The strike also had a significant personal impact on Icelandic men, who were forced to take their children to work since women refused to partake in childcare duties. Icelanders also recall how on the day food shops ran out of easy-to-cook meals like hot dogs, which Icelandic fathers could prepare for their children without the help of their wives.

Photograph by Ari Kárason. Courtesy of Reykjavik Museum of Photography.

The Women's Strike led to the Icelandic parliament passing a gender equality bill in 1976, thus adopting an official gender policy in the country. Though the Women's Strike of 1975 was generally regarded as a success and a victory for women, Icelanders continue to strive for gender equality and women's rights. For example, Icelandic women have subsequently returned to the Women's Strike as a form of efficient national protest, with similar collective action taking place in 1985, 2005, 2010, 2016 and 2018. It is also important to note that in Iceland the Women's Strike is known as Kvennafrídagurinn, or The Women's Day Off. This is because in 1975 Iceland had strict labour laws forbidding wildcat strike action (going on strike without the approval of union leadership) and the Committee organising the protest did not want any women to get fired due to participating in the walkouts.

More recently, the Icelandic Women's Strike has inspired instances of similar women's collective action in other countries. In 2016 women in Poland pushed back against a proposal to criminalise abortion and ban it even in cases where a woman's life would be in danger were the pregnancy to be continued. In response to the proposed legislative restrictions, the famous Polish actress and director Krystyna Janda posted an article online drawing attention to the successes of the Icelandic Women's Strike. She called on Polish citizens to take note of what Icelandic women had achieved in 1975 and suggested that Polish women organise a similar general strike. Janda's post led to a social media campaign that went viral and invited hundreds of thousands of women and men to join a National Strike of Women. On 3rd October 2016, like had taken place in Iceland forty years' prior, thousands of Polish women refused to go to work and rallies were held across the country. Adding a new protest method to the Icelandic model, women and men across Poland wore all black clothing on the day, which led the strike being known as Black Monday. Three days later the Polish parliament rejected the proposed legislative change, marking the strike a success.

Following the Black Monday protests, other women's initiatives echoing the collective mobilisation tactics first used by Icelandic women in 1975 have taken place globally and women's strikes demanding women's bodily autonomy and economic rights have become a global phenomenon. As an example of this, the transnational network International Women's Strike was formed in 2017, bringing together cis and trans women from over fifty countries. These recent developments demonstrate how women's collective action can defy space and time, with the protest tactics originating in a small Nordic country nearly half a decade ago being recycled and appropriated in a myriad of different geopolitical and temporal settings in the 21st century.
Photograph by Ari Kárason. Courtesy of Reykjavik Museum of Photography.
Further Reading

Auður Styrkársdóttir, 'Iceland: Breaking Male Dominance by Extraordinary Means' in Breaking Male Dominance in Old Democracies, eds. Drude Dahlerup and Monique Leyenaar (Oxford: University of Oxford Press, 2013), pp. 124-145, especially pp. 130-132.

Wanda Nowicka and Joanna Regulska, 'Repressive Policies and Women's Reproductive Choices in Poland: The Case of State Violence Against Women', in Women's Journey to Empowerment in the 21st Century: A Transnational Feminist Analysis of Women's Lives in Modern Times, eds. Kristen Zalenski, Annalisa Enrile, Euginia L. Weiss and Xiying Wang (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020), pp. 228-250, especially pp. 240-241.

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Iceland established the Gender Equality Council and passed the Gender Equality Act, banning gender discrimination in the workplace and in schools.

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Iceland elected the world's first female president of a democratic country.

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Women organized another strike and left work at 2:08 pm to fight for equal pay at home.

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Women finished their work early at 2:38 pm for another protest about salary.

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The Icelandic Women's Day Off 2016 - Reykjavik Dialogue

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Iceland became the first country to legally demand that men and women be paid equally.

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By a lot of measures, Iceland is the best place to be a woman. Iceland starts gender equality lessons in preschool. The country has not just one, but three, laws protecting women at work. Sick of media, treating women as sex objects? 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.

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. 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.
Read More: These Are the Best Countries to Be a Woman
Clearly, Iceland is leading the way, so what are the policies and standards in place that the rest of the world is looking up to?

Here are seven laws and standard practices that support women's rights, and penalize gender discrimination.

1. Women's Equality Is Literally Protected by Law

The Act on Equal Status and Equal Rights of Women and Men is the reason gender equality is a hallmark of Icelandic culture. The law, established in 2000, was revamped in 2008 with the overarching goal of reaching equal rights through all paradigms of society. This law includes information on gender equality for government and businesses to follow.

Within the law there are nine defined areas of gender discrimination. It identifies differences between indirect and direct gender discrimination, acknowledges gaps in wages, and recognizes that gender-based violence is detrimental to society.

The law draws out a roadmap to achieving gender equality, even including language on changing negative gender stereotypes. Within the law are 35 articles outlining specific policies on everything from outlawing gender discrimination in schoolbooks and the workplace to buying goods and services.

2. 'Equal Pay For Equal Work' Is Mandatory, Almost

When Icelanders found out it would be another 122 years before they closed the gender pay gap at the current rate, that was unacceptable. Lawmakers took action, announcing on International Women's Day that Iceland would require companies to prove they pay employees equal rates for equal work, or pay the fine.

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.

Currently women make between 14-18% less than men. But the country is soon to ending the last bit of gender inequality in the workplace.

"We want to break down the last of the gender barriers in the workplace," said Thorsteinn Viglundsson, Iceland's social affairs and equality minister. "History has shown that if you want progress, you need to enforce it."

3. Companies' Boards Must Include At Least 40% Women

After the shocking corruption and financial collapse in 2009, the government made an effort to include more women in seats of power to reduce corruption. They also prosecuted those responsible for the financial crisis, unlike in the US.

Article 15 of the Act on Equal Status and Equal Rights of Women and Men states that no public company board or government council or committee may have less than 40% gender equality.
Read More: Women Across Europe Are Walking Out of Work Early to Demand Equal Pay
The law also states that any company with more than 25 employees must have a gender equality program in place, which will review goals every three years.

4. Best Parental Leave Policy in the World

Iceland has the best maternity/paternity policy in the world. The official law, created in 2000, is known as the Icelandic Act on Maternity/Paternity and Parental Leave. The law itself was amended in 2006 increasing parental leave from six to nine months. The government covers parental leave for birth, adoption, and foster care for all employees in Iceland, even those who are self-employed paying 80% of earned salary to new parents. Parents split the time of leave equally to ensure children grow up with equal care from both parents, and workplaces are balanced. The policy is truly the gold standard of parental care.

5. From Preschool to College, Kids Learn Gender Equality Matters

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 mandates that gender equality must be taught in schools throughout all levels of education.

That means from early education through university, which is free, all sports, classes, and forms of schooling must include and practice gender equality. Iceland has no time for sexist books or assignments either.

The law states: "educational materials and textbooks shall be designed in such a way as not to discriminate against either sex." So you would never see an assignment, like the school in Utah, which forced girls to go on dates with male classmates, telling girls to "keep it to yourself" if they feel fat.

6. Paying For Sex Is Illegal. Stripclubs Are Illegal. Prostitutes Are Victims.

Paying for sex is illegal in Iceland. It has been for decades. The difference, however, is in 2007 the government amended the law arguing that most people who turn to soliciting sex have no other option or were coerced by others.

So instead of penalizing victims of poor circumstances who are often forced into prostitution, the law places criminalization on those who pay for sex, and third parties involved.

The country also banned stripclubs in 2009 for feminist reasoning. The revised law states no business may profit from nudity of employees. The law passed with full support in parliament.
Read More: Iceland to Be the First Country to Demand Proof of Equal Pay
"It is not acceptable that women or people in general are a product to be sold," said Kolbrún Halldórsdóttir who proposed the ban on strip clubs.

This applies to public advertising too. No ad may belittle any gender or go against the country's fierce mission to achieve gender equality.

7. There Is a Magical 'Ministry of Gender Equality'

Ironically, the caveat to achieving gender equality for Nordic countries is taking it for granted.

"Our biggest challenge is taking equality for granted. We relax too much. We think everything is done for good. This worries me," said Gro Bruntland, Norway's first female prime minister.

Fortunately, in Iceland, there's a ministry to complacency on gender equality. The ministry of gender equality, as in Harry Potter, is magic. But unlike the fictional novel, this ministry is real.

The country created agency to check and balance progress on advancing equality as part of a revisions to the Act on Equal Status and Equal Rights of Women and Men. The agency includes a three part council which includes the Equal Status Council, the Complaints Committee, and a new Centre for Gender Equality.

Together these agencies research, advertise, advocate, and check laws on gender equality. Their goal is to create a legal, cultural, historical, social and psychosocial approach to gender equality.

Global Citizen and CHIME FOR CHANGE are campaigning to eradicating discriminatory laws that hold girls and women back with #LevelTheLaw. Iceland sets the bar high, but they also prove changing the law works to create equal opportunities.

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7 Laws That Show Why Iceland Ranks First for Gender Equality

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By a lot of measures, Iceland is the best place to be a woman. Iceland starts gender equality lessons in preschool. The country has not just one, but three, laws protecting women at work. Sick of media, treating women as sex objects? That doesn't fly in Iceland, where a law bans gender discriminatory advertising.