On this day in 1975 an estimated 90% of the country's women downed tools and stopped working as part of the strike for women's rights in Iceland. Here, one of the original protestors Guðrún Jónsdóttir reflects on what galvanised the country's women back then and how, still today, there's much work to be done
Forty-seven years ago on 24 October 1975, on a chilly autumnal morning in Reykjavik, Iceland, more than 25,000 women left their homes and workplaces to protest for women’s rights. It was a watershed moment in history and Guðrún Jónsdóttir was there to watch it all take place.
Dressed in leather boots, a blue floral skirt, and a light blue sweater, 21-year-old Jónsdóttir left her young daughter with her husband and nervously headed to the protests, unsure of how many women would be attending.
“I was afraid of what would happen for women,” says Jónsdóttir. “I wondered if the strike could make the situation even worse.”
Photo: Ari Kárason; courtesy of Reykjavik Museum of Photography
Photo: Björgvin Pálsson; courtesy of Reykjavik Museum of Photography
However, as she arrived at the capital city, she felt courage rise as she took in the sight of 25,000 women all calling for gender equality. Women who intentionally abandoned their day-to-day tasks to prove a point that society needs women, and women should be respected and valued for the roles they perform.
“I went to the centre of Reykjavik and there was this stream of women coming from everywhere,” she remembers. “I suddenly saw that what I had always thought about justice and women’s rights, I shared with all those other women.”
Since Jónsdóttir was a young child, she was interested in gender equality, with a strong inclination for justice. Too young to join the Red Stockings, a women’s rights movement in Iceland, Jónsdóttir saw the strike, also referred to by organisers as a “day off”, as her chance to join the movement of women fed up with being undervalued in society.
Photo: Ari Kárason; courtesy of Reykjavik Museum of Photography
“We were not visible in media or politics,” Jónsdóttir says. “Women’s salaries were unacceptable. Our values and interests were not on any political agenda. It was a man’s world. I knew that from the day of the strike, I would be part of changing society.”
Above all else from that day, Jónsdóttir remembers a friend of her mother’s getting up to deliver a speech in front of the throngs of women. “She was an old, working-class woman with no education,” Jónsdóttir recalls. “But her speech was unforgettable. She was speaking, she had a voice. She moved everyone who listened to her. The fact a woman could stand out like that was so powerful.”
The strike was a testament to the power of grassroots organisations to push for change. “By just organising women’s groups and individuals, we make progress,” Jónsdóttir says. “Only by solidarity and sisterhood can we change things. It has always been the core of my beliefs from that day.”
In the years following the strike, pathways were formed for women to rise in Iceland. The Gender Equality Act was adopted in 1976, banning discrimination based on gender. In 2017, the Icelandic Parliament passed the Equal Pay Certification Law. The country has been recognised repeatedly for equality related to gender. Most notably, in 1980, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, a divorced single mother, became the first woman in the world to be democratically elected as a head of state and Europe’s first female president.
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“I’m told Iceland is the paradise of gender equality,” Jónsdóttir says. “But even though I’m told I live in this paradise, there is still so much to do.”
Most importantly, Jónsdóttir wants to see combatting violence against women made a priority. “Violence against women is symbolic of women’s position in society,” she says. “You wouldn’t have this violence against women if we were respected and equal to men.”