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“Women are waking up. They know that men have ruled the world since time immemorial. And how has that world been?” These words were first spoken by Aðalheiður Bjarnfreðsdóttir, a fifty-four-year-old domestic worker, on an unusually warm and dry afternoon in fall 1975. Her audience, in her speech in Reykjavík’s main square, included 25,000 women from all walks of life. They, along with 90 percent of Iceland’s female population, had refused to show up for work that day, in order to demonstrate how much they contributed to the country’s economy. It made no difference whether their work took place in a school, factory, office, or home. They were determined to show that they mattered. The women’s strike — or, for less radical supporters, “day off” — of October 24, 1975 was, in this sense, a success. The action brought the economy to a standstill, forcing Iceland to recognize how much it depended on women’s labor. The massive turnout also ushered in an era of heightened political participation among women, which has contributed substantially to Iceland’s international reputation as a front-runner in gender equality. Yet not all women gained equally from the action — and its legacy for the women it was meant to serve remains sharply contested.

Redstockings The idea for a nationwide women’s strike did not simply appear from nowhere — rather, it required organization. Indeed, the plan originated within Iceland’s Redstockings, a radical-feminist movement established in 1970 by a group of young women in their twenties and thirties. Most were middle class, well-educated, and employed in fields from teaching and office work to the visual arts. Many of these women had lived abroad, where they had first been introduced to feminism, and indeed the Redstockings’ name ultimately harked back to a similarly titled group that formed in New York in 1969. In April 1970 a Danish group called Rødstrømperne (Redstockings) marched down the main shopping street in Copenhagen in red stockings and large hats, and on May 1 an announcement was made on Icelandic National Radio encouraging “women in red stockings” to join Labor Day marches. Over the 1970s, the Redstockings led the fight for women’s labor and reproductive rights in Iceland, as they campaigned for sexual and reproductive education, abortion rights, equal pay for women, and recognition as breadwinners in the labor market. The movement was on the Left, compared to more established women’s associations, and leaned even further this way as more and more socialist and communist women joined. Already at the Redstockings’ first general meeting in 1970, a motion was presented for a general women’s strike. Such an idea was not wholly without precedent: activists may have been influenced by the Women’s Strike for Equality in the United States that same year, commemorating fifty years of women winning the right to vote. The organizers of this action gave talks on their efforts in various European countries, including the Scandinavian nations where many Icelandic women were educated. But in Iceland itself, a women’s strike remained a fantasy until the United Nations declared that 1975 would be a year dedicated to women.

International Women’s Year The Icelandic preparations for this “International Women’s Year” began in early 1974. That June, three women’s organizations — the Federation of Women’s Associations, the Icelandic Women’s Rights Association, and the Women’s Student Association — invited women from other interest groups to attend a planning meeting, and there the Redstockings’ representative Vilborg Sigurðardóttir suggested that they should organize a one-day women’s strike. The idea met with opposition from the other associations and was temporarily put to one side. However, the Redstockings were not discouraged. They kicked off International Women’s Year in January 1975 by organizing a conference, in cooperation with the labor unions, on the conditions of women in minimum-wage occupations. At the conference, the idea of a women’s strike was well received by low-income women, and a motion was passed which stated that “all Icelandic women should abandon their work for one day during the year in order to emphasize women’s contribution to the labor force and in the home.” Women union activists were enthusiastic about the strike idea, and it gained considerable support as it started circulating by word of mouth among low-income women, after two conferences organized by the Redstockings and labor unions over the spring. The idea received further impetus in May, as the prime minister’s office appointed a steering committee for International Women’s Year including labor representatives and figures from both established and more radical feminist organizations, including the Redstockings. In June 1975 this committee organized a conference to plan events for the fall, and here a motion for a women’s strike was again made, this time tabled by eight women carefully selected as representatives of various groups in order to gain broad-based support. Among the eight were liberals and conservatives, teachers, store clerks, office managers, and single mothers. This time, the motion passed, but concessions had to be made. Some of the right-leaning women thought that a strike (verkfall in Icelandic) would be too radical. In order to ensure solidarity across the political spectrum, the June conference agreed to urge women to “take a day off” instead. In reference to the UN origins of International Women’s Year, they chose United Nations Day — October 24 — for a Kvennafrí, or a Women’s Day Off. Nonetheless, as historian Kristín Svava Tómasdóttir notes, the day has frequently been called the Women’s Strike, or Kvennaverkfall. For the Redstockings, the event continued to be a strike, despite the name change — and left-wing media followed suit. The Alþýðublaðið newspaper, owned by the Social Democratic Party, declared that its male employees would not be strikebreakers, for instance refusing to answer the telephone while the female receptionist was striking. Among the general population, there was understandably some confusion about whether men were allowed to fill women’s roles in the workplace on October 24.

Preparations Plans nonetheless continued apace, involving wider circles of labor and women’s activists. The eight women who had proposed the strike formed a provisional working committee, which then invited all labor unions, women’s associations, and other interest groups to nominate a representative to a joint committee, which ultimately numbered around fifty members. In September, they appointed an executive committee responsible for the overall handling of the day’s events, as well as five working groups to coordinate promotion, media, fundraising, programming, and communication with women organizing strikes outside the capital area. With October 24 fast approaching, the women plunged into preparations. The fundraising committee produced stickers for sale and contacted labor unions and organizations for financial support. The union for female domestic and care workers, Sókn, was the first to contribute financially, even though its members lived off the country’s lowest wages. Organizers’ main argument as they circulated posters and flyers was that women’s contribution to Icelandic society was undervalued. Women received lower salaries than men in similar occupations and were not represented on the main negotiating committee of the Icelandic Confederation of Labor (ASÍ). Flyers also invoked the lack of support for working mothers and the undervaluation of the contribution of female farmers, housewives, and other groups of women. Dozens of women worked furiously over September and October to organize the Women’s Day Off, and met with support from most media and workplaces. There were also a few attempts to undermine their efforts with derogatory remarks — for instance, asking whether the Women’s Day Off also extended to the bedroom — and by spreading rumors that women would be laid off permanently if they failed to work on International Women’s Day. These attempts were largely unsuccessful. Indeed, it is estimated that 90 percent of women in Iceland did not show up for work on October 24, 1975. And the strike brought the Icelandic economy to a standstill. Schools, nurseries, shops, and factories closed, and men had to step in by either staying at home or bringing their children to work. There were over twenty rallies organized all over the country, but the biggest event took place in Lækjartorg, the main square in downtown Reykjavík, 25,000 women attending — just under half of the entire female population in the capital area. On the stage in Lækjartorg, a girls’ marching band opened the rally, which included theatrical performances, sing-alongs, and addresses by the only female MPs, Svava Jakobsdóttir and Sigurlaug Bjarnadóttir, as well as speeches from Björg Einarsdóttir, a salesclerk, Ásthildur Ólafsdóttir, a housewife, and Aðalheiður Bjarnfreðsdóttir, a domestic worker. It was Aðalheiður who captured the hearts and minds of the audience, speaking without notes about the disrespect women faced in their work. They were considered an auxiliary workforce, to be called out when work was plenty but sent home when it became scarce. She believed that women were a force for change and would, in time, have something to show for their efforts and solidarity. Her famous words are still widely remembered.