October 24, 2022
Tatjana Latinovic, chairwoman of the Icelandic Women's Rights Association, writes:
Today we celebrate Women's Day, 47 years since women's organizations, women's clubs, and unions first came together and women stopped working to emphasize the importance of women's work contributions in Iceland in 1975.
Despite tireless struggle over the last half century, we have not yet managed to fulfill the dream that the Reds, feminists and activists of the 1970s carried in their hearts; to eliminate the gender pay gap and achieve equal pay in Iceland.
Today, the gender pay gap, when looking at the difference in total earnings between women and men, is 21.9%. It is now well into the 2020s and it is unacceptable that we have not yet succeeded in eliminating this national scourge.
The Icelandic Women's Rights Association was founded in 1907 to work towards "Icelandic women receiving full political equality with men, the right to vote, stand for election, and the right to hold office and work under the same conditions as men". The association's goals remain the same today, to ensure that women have equal access to decision-making in all areas of society and that they have the same opportunities and equal pay in the labor market.
These two goals are inseparable. We will not achieve equal pay until women take a full and equal part in setting the laws and rules that build our society and the labor market. Today we remember that 100 years have passed since Ingibjörg H. Bjarnason took a seat in the Icelandic Parliament, the first woman. It was not until 87 years after Ingibjörg entered parliament, in 2009, that changes began to be noticed. At that time, women became 43% of parliamentarians and since then countless laws that improve the status of women and equality have been passed. It becomes clear that when women are given agenda power in parliament, issues are addressed that ensure equality and improve the status of all of us who live here.
It is important that we join hands and ensure equal access to decision-making in all areas of society. Women's work is still discounted and the work of marginalized groups such as immigrants and the disabled is even more discounted. Women's classes have sustained Icelandic society for centuries. It is women's classes that raise and teach children, that nurse the sick and care for the elderly. It is women who sustain the foundations of society and we must value their work. We in the Icelandic Women's Rights Association now look to the Icelandic government. That the government takes action that ensures that society's distorted value judgments are corrected once and for all.
When there is little difference in the total income of women and men in Iceland today, women have worked for their wages after 6 hours and 15 minutes. Women today work for free after 15:15. Let's correct the wrong valuation immediately!
