This is what happened when thousands of women refused to work in Iceland | World News

It was eerily quiet on the suburban streets of Iceland on October 24, 2023.

Schools weren’t open, swimming pools closed and several banks shut early. That was because the majority of Iceland’s women were not at work or looking after children; they were gathered in downtown Reykjavík and other cities and towns across the country. 

The 100,000-strong group, made up of women and non-binary people, had taken part in kvennafrí [Women’s Day Off in English].

In the morning, all-male news teams had announced shutdowns across the country with buses delayed, hospitals understaffed and hotel rooms uncleaned.

By afternoon, a huge group gathered on Arnarhóll, a hill in Reykjavík city centre, to wave signs and sing feminist songs such as ‘Áfram Stelpur (Onward Girls.) The song includes lyrics which translate to: 

‘Now women mass together and carry signs of freedom; the time has come, let’s all stand hand in hand and firmly stand our ground. Even though many want to go backwards and others stand in place; we will never accept that.’

Why are women in Iceland protesting?

Women on average earned 21% less than men in 2022, according to Statistics Iceland, and a third worked part time due to childcare commitments. Meanwhile, 40% had experienced gender-based assault or harassment. The group of protesters wanted to take aim at both these key issues.

Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir was among those who refused to work for the day as well as Iceland’s First Lady Eliza Reid. 

Finnborg carried a sign which read ‘actions immediately’ in Icelandic. Slogans such as ‘Kallarðu þetta jafnrétti?’ [You call this equality?] were emblazoned on the placards held by others around her.

As the protestors marched around Tjörnin lake and made the streets of Reykjavík their own; they walked in the footsteps of revolutionaries; after the first monumental Women’s Day Off in 1975.

What happened in Iceland in 1975?

Women in Iceland could vote, get an education and run for public office by the 1970s. But they were still hugely underrepresented in the Parliament, only making up 0-5% of politicians. As a result, a movement called the ‘Red Stockings’ entered society in 1970.

Along with similar groups, the Red Stockings decided to organise ‘something amazing’ for the United Nations ‘Women’s Year’ in 1975. Women would down tools and stop working in a bid to get men to listen to their concerns. They named the protest ‘Women’s Day Off’ instead of ‘Women’s Strike’ to not risk women being fired by employers. Stickers with ‘Women’s Day Off’ were printed and appeared on clothing, handbags, walls and windows, as thousands of women put Friday October 24, 1975 in their diary. 

They included Kristín Ástgeirsdóttir, a 22-year-old history student at the University of Iceland. She’d been brought up in Vestmannaeyjar, a fishing community in Iceland, by her nurse mother and writer father. 

‘It was like a wave,’ Kristín tells Metro. ‘Women would ask each other “are you going?” at work or on the street. The word spread. On the day, around 2pm, we started streaming down the streets to this meeting. To see all those women, to feel the energy, it was fantastic.’

The reasons which spurred the very first Women’s Day Off protest back in 1975 (Picture: Kvennasögusafn – Women’s History Archives)

Women gave speeches and sang songs as the day passed and, at one point, a brass band performed the theme tune to ‘Shoulder to Shoulder’, a BBC series about the Suffragette movement which had been popular in Iceland. It was estimated that 90% – 30,000 – of the nation’s women had taken part in the demonstration. 

Meanwhile, men took children to work or remained home to care for them. According to local reports, foods like Bjúga – a smoked sausage which doesn’t require cooking – ran out in many supermarkets. Radio presenters called households in rural towns and villages to ask if women were taking part in the protest and – for the most part – had the phone answered by men who confirmed this was the case. Fish factories were forced to close since so many of the workers were female and telephone switchboards were unmanned.

The Women’s Day Off was referred to as ‘long Friday’ by some fathers.

Did the Women’s Day Off change anything?

The 1975 march galvanised a generation of women in Iceland.

By 1983, women gained 15% of parliamentary seats compared to just 5% a decade before. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir came to power in Iceland in 1980, becoming the world’s first democratically elected female president. 

At the time, Kristin was a journalist at a radical left-wing newspaper. She recalls from this time: ‘Seeing and hearing the discussion around Finnbogadóttir – she was divorced, she had adopted a child, she had had cancer – made me so angry.

‘Some men thought it was impossible for a woman like that to be in power. But she did win and that was fantastic, it meant a lot for the next generation of women to see a woman in this top position.’

Finnbogadóttir was president until 1996; both Finnborg and Valgerður grew up with her in power. Further history was made in 2009 with the election of Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir as Prime Minister of Iceland – and the world’s first openly gay PM.

Meanwhile, Women’s Day Off protests continued, albeit on a smaller scale.

In 2010 for example, many women packed their bags and left work at 2:25pm. This was to highlight the gender pay gap and how the time they essentially stopped getting paid compared with men’s earnings. Similarly, in 2016, Icelandic women left work at 2.38 p.m., and in 2018, women left work at 2:55 p.m.

‘A convention of clout chasers’

She adds: ‘We want to avoid the Women’s Day Off becoming like a festival. In 2023, we had lots of politicians attend which had symbolic importance as these are the people who can change things. But some had very right-wing and harmful policies on public spending and migration, which is not good for women or marganilised people.’

‘It feels that the feminist struggle is much more robust,’ Valgerður adds.

‘It is more mainstream and not concentrated on a few individuals but now a broad and diverse movement. Despite the fact that the gender wage gap and gender-based violence persists, we have also come far since the 1990s and early 2000s. There are, for example, many more ways to express oneself and one’s gender identity today than 20 years ago.’

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Kristín pauses and takes a sip of tea out a Moomin mug [creator Tove Jansson is a feminist icon to many in Nordic nations] before answering.

‘I was brought up with the belief that our role in society is to make it better,’ she explains.

‘It is important we stay awake. We see how easy it can be for men to take rights away; we have seen that in Afghanistan, in Russia. We can’t give up or forget the history of women and the history of feminism. If we learn from our history, we know what we are dealing with in our future.’

To read more about the Women’s Day Off movement, click here.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing Kirsten.Robertson@metro.co.uk 

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