A WORKING WOMAN’S DAY OFF
The General Strikes That—Generally—Worked
On Friday, October 24, 1975, something strange happened in Iceland—or, more accurately, nothing happened, strangely. Telephone calls failed to connect. Newspapers didn’t go to print. Theaters didn’t open. Schools, by and large, also closed their doors for the day, as did banks and factories. Flights were canceled across the nation. Iceland, figuratively speaking, was frozen in place.
The cause was Kvennafrídagurinn, translated in English: “Women’s Day Off.” The United Nations had declared that year “International Women’s Year” and planned a number of conferences in support of this effort. These conferences were largely antiseptic and boring, however, and when five of Iceland’s women’s rights organizations got together to figure out how to activate International Women’s Year in their own country, one had a much grander idea. They proposed that women declare a general strike instead. For one day, women would be encouraged to take the day off: They wouldn’t go to work, they would have their husbands watch the kids—generally speaking, they would pretend they weren’t even there. As The New York Times reported, the goal of the “Day Off” was to “show that women are indispensable to the country’s economic and national life”—assuming, that is, that Icelandic women actually participated in the event.
Leading up to the day itself, many Icelandic men didn’t think much of it, The New York Times recounts. They “treated [it] as a joke when it was first suggested.” This would prove to be a mistake, though, as a staggering 90 percent of Iceland’s women decided to join the protest, with many attending rallies across the small island nation. Per the BBC, the largest protest of the day—which took place in the capital, Reykjavik—drew approximately 25,000 people. This was a significantly large number given that there were only about 220,000 total people living in Iceland at the time. The events of the day did not disappoint, either. The 25,000 strong were met with inspiring speakers (including two members of the legislature), songs of solidarity, and discussions on how to bring gender equality into the forefront of the Icelandic conversation.
And as it turned out, the protests did exactly that, because they brought the country to a halt. Not only did businesses across Iceland shut down, but the strike also affected childcare and housework. Mothers throughout the island left the care of their children to the fathers, which meant kids were brought along to work with their dads. Many men, frustrated with how difficult it was to get work done while also watching a child, dubbed the event “The Long Friday.” The efforts—or lack thereof—of these women certainly did not go unnoticed.
The protest also brought about permanent change. The next year, Iceland passed a law that guaranteed equal rights regardless of gender. And in 1980, the country elected Vigdís Finnbogadóttir as its fourth president. Vigdís was the world’s first woman democratically elected to lead her country.