When will women finally be paid on par with men?
Forty-one years ago, on October 24, 1975, nine out of every ten women in Iceland—some 25,000—got up from their desks, turned off the stoves and handed the children over to the dads to protest against gender inequality.
As they went home at midnight, they had affected a tidal change: Just a year after the strike, the Gender Equality Act was passed and gender discrimination in the work place was banned. Five years later, Vigdis Finnbogadottir—a divorced single mother—became the first democratically-elected female head of state, and went on to serve four consecutive terms.
Today, Iceland continuously tops the rankings for gender equality, often being cited as the best place in the world to be a woman. And still, in 2016, women in Iceland make 17% less on average than men and, although that is a major improvement on the 60% of the 1970s, inequality persists.
So, on October 24, 2016, women will walk out at exactly 2:38pm—the time after which they are no longer being paid for the work they do.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.
Photo Credit: Brian A. Jackson
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