Does the world keep turning when women stop contributing to it?
It is this dizzying question that Icelandic men experienced on October 24, 1975 when almost all women in the country decided to stop working.
A founding militant act in Iceland and taken as an example elsewhere without ever meeting with such success.
Five years later, the Icelanders will elect Vigdis Finnbogadottir as the head of the country, the first female president in Iceland, but also in Europe.
Read alsoWage parity between women and men still far from being achieved in France
Women's day is not a party
The year 1975 was declared "
International Women's Year
" by the United Nations.
In Iceland, where women receive a salary almost 40% lower than that of men, discontent is rising.
For October 24, Icelandic Women's Day, the radical feminist group Redstockings is launching the idea of a women's strike.
The day before, the organizers of the movement broadcast an appeal to their supporters: "
Remember that this is not a party but a day of generalized very serious arrest
".
Gerdur Steinthorsdottir, spokesperson for the strikers, said:
The strike is intended to prove how indispensable we are to the economy and the national life of the country.
We are not asking for any special salary increase.
We just want to show that it is very unfair that women receive lower wages
”.
And it is 90% of women in the country who decide to follow the movement while thousands of demonstrators converge on the capital Reykjavik.
A paralyzed country
It is a dispatch from Reuters which reports in
Le Figaro
the Icelandic event.
“
To move forward, women stop
”, headlines the newspaper: “
The women of Iceland intended to prove to men, if they still doubted it, that they are indispensable.
This Friday, all Icelandic women are crossing their arms.
The proof is made, when housewives, secretaries, nurses, workers and even nannies go on strike, the life of the country is practically paralyzed.
»
The shock is severe for the men who had taken for a huge joke the threats of strike of the militants.
Most stores are forced to close, the "
PTT ladies
" are absent subscribers.
“
Even the radio and television programs are compromised, the women having refused to take part in them
”, says the agency.
As for the government, it declares “
that it cannot do anything without a telephone
”.
Demonstrations of this type will be held several times on October 24, notably in 1985, 2010 or 2016. And almost forty years later, in January 2018, Iceland will commit by law to make equal pay mandatory between women and men.
Again, a world first.