Since then there have been several partial-day strikes, most recently in 2018, with women walking off the job in the early afternoon, symbolizing the time of day when women, on average, stop earning compared to men.
That's pretty clever
this post was submitted on 24 Oct 2023
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Unequal pay sure, but how the hell is a strike supposed to stop violence against women? That's not an economic concept that can be impacted by withholding labor. It's a fine goal I just don't see how a strike helps it get accomplished.
It brings attention to the issue. Not everything is intended to have a direct impact on problems.
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I think you might need to read A Modest Proposal.
The thing is, giving women the ability to extricate themselves from bad relationships where they explicitly have to rely on the income of someone else to take care of themselves and their offspring is a big reason why violence against women persists.
When we're talking "violence against women" we don't mean women randomly attacked in the street, more often than not, we mean women attacked by their partners, who are mostly men.
The impact of being able to financially extricate yourself from a violent partner is huge and is driven by economics. It's literally why Lenin considered women an equal part of the Communist struggle. It's why Russia under the USSR initially legalized abortion in 1920. This would unfortunately change when Stalin came to power, but at the outset, it was understood that women having economic independence was a huge part of allowing them to become equals to men in society, and allowing them to escape abusive men.
While A Modest Proposal shouldn't be taken with any seriousness, it's jokey demeanor makes very good points about the same ideas. There are all kinds of things you can do economically to incentivize reduced violence towards women.
The idea that higher pay wouldn't have an impact on reducing violence towards women seems a bit short-sighted.
I appreciate the thoughtful response. That's the way to disagree with someone without being a dick about it. Good comment.
Imagine you're a wealthy CEO who funds politicians. Obviously you're evil and the only thing you care about is money.
Suddenly you start making less money because people are upset about violence against women. The path to you making more money again is for the government to address this issue. So you use your considerable influence to make it happen.
Wealthy people are simple minded and easy to manipulate. Just make it more profitable to do what's right and they will.
Although I like the solidarity. Isn't she the one who can enact policies to combat pay disparity?
I'd imagine not unilaterally; she'd still need parliamentary action.
And for the private sector to do their part.
She's a prime minister, not an empress.
Her first order of business while prime Ministering should have been to make herself an empress. Classic mistake
Rookie mistake
No.
I'm not familiar with Icelandic law. Is it legal to pay someone less based on their gender?
It is illegal throughout the west, often monitored and harshly punished. As has been demonstrated time and again for decades, including by recent nobel laureate Claudia Goldin, the wage gap is due to women's choice, most notably motherhood. That women are paid less for the same work is false, a myth.
Well... sorta.
The average wage of women starts falling behind that of men at around the age of 30-something, which does match the point when people have kids nowadays, especially women with higher education. Funnilly enough, in average women earn more than men up to that point because more women get degrees than men.
So yeah, it's related to childbearing.
However...
It apparently depends on how long a woman stays away from work during the parental leave period: the longer that happens the bigger the negative impact on a woman's career and hence her on lifetime earnings.
Part of the reason why mothers stay much longer at home on parental leave than fathers are indeed personal choice, but part is cultural (i.e. societal expectation that the mother takes care of the children), part is legal (different legal lengths of parental leave for men and women) and part economic (insufficient provision of affordable kindergarten places, at times making returning to work more costly than staying at home, which associated with the other parts means women are the ones that more often end up staying at home for years after childbirth due to this).
Whilst the first 2 aren't really something governments can do much about, the other 2 are.
A handful of countries have gone ahead and done things to change this, for example with free kindergarten places guaranteed for every child and parental leave which is just one big gender-independent block of months that can be divided between parents in any way they see fit.
So are these female politicians in Iceland pushing for the real world solutions that can start fixing the roots of the problem or are they just endlessly posturing about the symptoms for image management and political gain amongst the majority gender?!
Women are paid less for the same work. The gap is around 10%. For all men and women in full-time employment not in the same job it's 20%, while the average total difference is 40%. Also you just linked to an article about a person recieving the Nobel prize instead of anything actually supporting your claim.
I guess I should have looked for links a bit more, that nobel has talked at length about it in many interviews. Anyway this myth has been debunked many times and there are plenty of sources even if you don't make an effort, here is another one.
Even if they limit the statistics to the same sector and full-time jobs, there are still many variables, things like men tend to work more overtime and worse hours. If anything, those who defend this myth should provide evidence that this happens, it makes no sense to defend that it is systemic but only be able to back it up with vague statistics from which they draw whatever conclusions they want.
To give an example of facts in reality, in spain where controls are very hard, there are about 20 convictions a year for wage discrimination, and it is not even only towards women. Purely anecdotal.
I don't think it's a myth exactly, just not nearly as bad as some statistics makes it out to my (i.e 80 cents to the dollar).
If only the prime minister of Iceland was in some kind of position of authority where she could do something to address gender inequality in Iceland.
did you read the article?
So what happens when the prime minister goes on strike? Who leads the country?
Doesnt answer your question, however I did a tiny bit of googling. The prime minister is appointed by the president under the Constitution of Iceland, Section II Article 17, and chairs the Cabinet of Iceland. So maybe the president will appoint someone else from the cabinet as an acting prime minister?
That sounds like a scab hahahahah
I accidentally ended up in the middle of this, and there was genuinely a huge turnout. It was good to see, and quite uplifting.
isn't Iceland the most gender equal and progressive country?
And apparently this is why. Good for these women for standing up for what they deserve. I hope others around the world will see this.
It is but gender inequality is still endemic across society. Put this way, I'd rather be a woman in Iceland than say Afghanistan, but I'd still rather be a man in every single country.
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