The day Iceland's women went on strike
Forty years ago, the women of
Iceland went on strike - they refused to work, cook and look after
children for a day. It was a moment that changed the way women were seen
in the country and helped put Iceland at the forefront of the fight for
equality.
When Ronald Reagan became the US President, one small Iceland went on strike - they refused to work, cook and look after
children for a day. It was a moment that changed the way women were seen
in the country and helped put Iceland at the forefront of the fight for
equality.
boy in Iceland was outraged. "He can't be a president - he's a man!" he
exclaimed to his mother when he saw the news on the television.
It
was November 1980, and Vigdis Finnbogadottir, a divorced single mother,
had won Iceland's presidency that summer. The boy didn't know it, but
Vigdis (all Icelanders go by their first name) was Europe's first female
president, and the first woman in the world to be democratically
elected as a head of state.
Many more Icelandic children may well
have grown up assuming that being president was a woman's job, as Vigdis
went on to hold the position for 16 years - years that set Iceland on
course to become known as "the world's most feminist country".
But
Vigdis insists she would never have been president had it not been for
the events of one sunny day - 24 October 1975 - when 90% of women in the
country decided to demonstrate their importance by going on strike.
