Women in Iceland including the prime minister go on strike for equal pay and an end to violence

By EGILL BJARNASON
Associated Press

HUSAVIK, Iceland (AP) — Iceland’s prime minister and women across the island nation are on strike to push for an end to unequal pay and gender-based violence. Prime Minister Katrin Jakobsdottir says she’ll stay home as part of the strike on Tuesday. Organizers are calling on women and nonbinary people to refuse both paid and unpaid work during the one-day strike. Schools and the health system, which have female-dominated workforces, say they’ll be heavily affected. It comes almost half a century after Iceland’s first women’s strike on Oct. 24, 1975. Then, 90% of women refused to work, clean or look after children, to voice anger at discrimination in the workplace. The following year Iceland passed a law guaranteeing equal rights irrespective of gender.