JStories – For 16 consecutive years by 2025, Iceland has ranked No. 1 within the World Financial Discussion board’s World Gender Hole Index — the narrowest gender hole on this planet. But reaching this degree of equality took a long time of shifting mindsets and coordinated social effort. The turning level got here precisely 50 years in the past, on Oct. 24, 1975, throughout an unprecedented nationwide motion often called the Ladies’s Day Off.
On that day, 90 % of Icelandic ladies walked off their jobs – stepping away from their home tasks. Factories, banks, colleges, and preschools shut down. Males have been out of the blue left scrambling to care for his or her kids, many realizing for the primary time simply how central ladies’s labor was to the functioning of society.
This October, to mark the fiftieth anniversary, Jón Gnarr, a member of Parliament from the Reform Celebration and former mayor of Reykjavík, traveled to Japan for an occasion hosted by the Icelandic Embassy. We spoke to him about what the day meant for Iceland – and what its legacy holds right this moment.
The anniversary coincides with the Japan launch of the documentary movie “The Day Iceland Stood Nonetheless,” which recounts the 1975 strike. Throughout the nation, many ladies who’ve seen the movie have organized occasions to lift consciousness in regards to the inequalities and frustrations they face of their day by day lives. The need to be taught from Iceland’s historic motion appears to be rising in Japan.
Turning level in Icelandic civic life
An actor, comic and author, along with being a politician, Gnarr describes the 1975 strike as “a turning level in Iceland’s civic historical past.” He was eight years previous on the time and remembers solely fragments, however he remembers a change in “the environment of society” after that day.
“Males realized – many for the primary time – how a lot ladies have been working within the residence and the way deeply society relied on them,” Gnarr says.
Within the following years, Iceland undertook each authorized reforms amid cultural shifts. These reforms laid the inspiration for Iceland’s rise to the highest of worldwide gender-equality rankings.
In 1980, 5 years after the strike, Iceland elected Vigdís Finnbogadóttir, the world’s first democratically chosen feminine president.
“I bear in mind seeing her on TV as a baby for the primary time; she struck me as so lovely and complex,” Gnarr says. “When she turned president, that had a deep influence on me. I should have been about 13 then.”
Finnbogadóttir had studied French literature on the Sorbonne and raised a daughter as a single mom. Reporters regularly requested her why she wasn’t married – an indication, Gnarr notes, of how deeply sexism was ingrained in Icelandic society. But her presidency confirmed Icelanders that ladies may lead a nation.
Viking nation with a robust macho tradition
Regardless of its present status, Iceland fifty years in the past was removed from gender equality. The nation was initially settled by Vikings, Gnarr explains, and when he was a baby, the expectation that males be robust, stoic, and macho was nonetheless firmly entrenched.
“Iceland was a ‘man’s nation,’” Gnarr says. “You have been taught that males must be robust, hardworking, and silent. However I didn’t take into account myself to be a part of this macho tradition.”
His father – muscular, authoritarian, and a police officer at the moment – embodied the standard mannequin. At residence, he overpowered Gnarr’s mom and managed every part, he remembers.
“She was clever and free-spirited, however she at all times deferred to him. He was just like the ‘regulation’ in our home.”
Gnarr resolved early on that he wouldn’t develop as much as resemble his father.
He pursued appearing, studied at drama faculty, and even performed feminine roles onstage. After changing into mayor of Reykjavík in 2010, he participated within the Satisfaction Parade – a public celebration of LGBTQ+ rights and id – wearing drag and as soon as wore the standard ladies’s nationwide costume, he says.
He was nervous ladies may be offended, however he provides, “The individuals who acquired offended have been principally males.” He as soon as jokingly known as himself a “terrorist towards patriarchy.”
“As a result of I’m a part of it and do one thing towards it from inside. Many heterosexual males have an issue with homosexual males as a result of it’s one way or the other belittling their masculinity {that a} man will be female. However that’s an phantasm. Everybody accommodates each female and male qualities. Recognizing that’s actual power.”
Gender equality additionally advantages males
Requested what males can do to assist construct gender-equal societies, Gnarr argues that each one males ought to help it – as a result of they stand to achieve.
“It’s a win-win factor. Some males may be afraid that they’re shedding one thing. However it’s a false impression. They aren’t shedding something. The truth is, they’re gaining. If we empower folks round us and assist them to be the very best they are often, everybody goes to revenue from it.”
A father of 5, Gnarr says he applies that precept at residence.
“I completely don’t need my daughters to be discriminated towards ‘as a result of they’re a sure gender.’ It’s like racism – fear-based stupidity and ignorance.”
Change, he stresses, begins with small questions. If a corporation’s management candidates are all males, somebody must ask: “What about ladies?” That easy query begins the shift.
Within the Nineteen Eighties, Iceland shaped a ladies’s occasion, which received parliamentary seats and pushed by insurance policies reminiscent of parental go away, equal-pay laws, and abortion rights. Ladies’s visibility in public life turned normalized.
At present, all three leaders of the governing coalition events are ladies. The prime minister is a girl. Six of 11 cupboard ministers are ladies. Practically half of Parliament (46%) is feminine. The present mayor of Reykjavík is a girl, and Iceland’s president, Halla Tómasdóttir, is the second lady to carry the workplace. She visited Japan this Might, assembly Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and the Emperor.
“It’s so frequent (to have ladies in these positions). That’s what actual equality appears like.”
A message for Japan: Let younger, educated ladies enter politics
Whereas Iceland tops world gender-gap rankings, Japan stays at 118th. On the time of the interview, Gnarr noticed indicators of change, together with the emergence of Sanae Takaichi because the first-ever feminine prime minister in Japan. Nonetheless, he emphasised that actual progress requires strengthening democracy itself. And meaning bringing extra younger, educated ladies into politics.
Equally essential are structural help – lengthy parental go away, assured job safety upon return – and programs that permit ladies to work and care for their kids with out sacrificing their careers.
“When superb folks with unbelievable schooling and intelligence can’t participate in society, it’s a waste of sources,” says Gnarr. “I believe Japan will attempt to change, as a result of the choice could be to turn out to be a nation of aged males.”
He factors to the Faroe Islands, a distant Danish territory, for instance. Many younger ladies go away for schooling on the mainland and by no means return, searching for societies the place they’re revered and given alternatives they deserve, he says. Comparable patterns could also be seen in rural Japan, the place conservative gender roles stay entrenched, and ladies are anticipated to remain residence.
“They form of count on ladies to be our servants, serving within the family. So loads of ladies are leaving their countryside,” he says.
Gnarr warns that societies that suppress ladies will ultimately decline. Even Iceland, he provides, stays in transition. Home labor continues to fall disproportionately on ladies, particularly when caring for retired husbands, reminiscent of cooking and making espresso for them.
“You already know, we nonetheless have an extended approach to go. It’s essential to have dialogue and maintain having conversations between women and men.”
Translated by Anita De Michele | JStories
Edited by Sayuri Daimon, Kwee Chuan Yeo | JStories
High picture: Photograph courtesy of the Embassy of Iceland
