2y ago

Iceland’s first full-day women’s strike in 48 years aims to close pay gap

www.theguardian.com

Organisers hope the women’s strike – whose confirmed participants include fishing industry workers, teachers, nurses and the PM, Katrín Jakobsdóttir – will bring society to a standstill to draw attention to the country’s ongoing gender pay gap and widespread gender-based and sexual violence.

Europe @feddit.de

misk @sopuli.xyz

2y ago

Iceland’s first full-day women’s strike in 48 years aims to close pay gap

www.theguardian.com /world/2023/oct/23/icelands-first-full-day-womens-strike-in-48-years-aims-to-close-pay-gap

52 comments

Full transparency would be good. No one should fear to disclose how much they make. The boomer Maxim of 'it's nobodies business how much I make' is a bit of a false modesty.
If you earn to little, wouldn't you like to know, and if you feel like you eraan to much, you probably do.
For those interested, this year's Nobel Prize for Economics has been awarded to economic historian Claudia Goldin at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, “for having advanced our understanding of women’s labour market outcomes”.
Goldin mined 200 years of data to show that greater economic growth did not lead to wage parity, nor to more women in the workplace.
Goldin’s work has helped to explain why women have been under-represented in the labour market for at least the past two centuries, and why even today they continue to earn less than men on average (by around 13%, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development).
Although such inequalities are widely recognized, they present a puzzle for economic models because they represent not just a potential injustice, but also what economists call a market inefficiency. Women seem to be both under-utilized and under-incentivized in the labour force, even though those in high-income countries typically now have a higher educational level than do men.
- Women seem to be both under-utilized and under-incentivized in the labour force, even though those in high-income countries typically now have a higher educational level than do men.
  Maybe turn that around then. Why are more men stupid/uneducated enough to enter the labour force only to be exploited by their employers for little gain in areas of life that matter? Or alternatively, why do men not have the opportunity to avoid the labour force even if they do recognize it is not to their advantage to enter it?
  Obviously that is a bit nonsensical too but maybe the inherent assumption that it is good thing to spend a large percentage of your time labouring should be questioned if we want to answer questions like that.
  
  Yeah I mean it wasn't 200 years ago that women stayed at home and provided huge amounts of value to the family. All that real-life value is being ignored so that we can ask why they weren't working for someone else instead?
  What the fuck.
- Although such inequalities are widely recognized, they present a puzzle for economic models because they represent not just a potential injustice, but also what economists call a market inefficiency.
  I am always fascinated, that each time the neoclassical school of economics proves to be false, they all act like thats a totally new and singular unexpected thing, as if this hasn't been proved time and time again for all sorts of issues..
- market inefficiency
  Don't get me wrong - people doing this kind of research and building up the data to prove the reality is a good thing, but the absurdity of turning to capitalism to resolve patriarchy is just much..
  It's like the flip side of class reductionism - "only war is the gender war" - hey capitalists, look at this untapped resource, if you just exploit women 13% less, you can make all this extra profit!
  And while I completely support this strike, I wish they too would look at the bigger picture.
  The reality is that all these systems (capitalism and classism, sexism, racism, ableism, queerphobia, and so on) are interconnected and inseparable, they serve each other in many ways, and must all be abolished for us to have anything resembling a just society.
The first one 48 years ago : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975Icelandicwomen'sstrike
On 24 October 1975, Icelandic women went on strike for the day to "demonstrate the indispensable work of women for Iceland’s economy and society" and to "protest wage discrepancy and unfair employment practices". It was then publicized domestically as Women's Day Off (Kvennafrídagurinn). Participants, led by women's organizations, did not go to their paid jobs and did not do any housework or child-rearing for the whole day. Ninety percent of Iceland's female population participated in the strike. Iceland's parliament passed a law guaranteeing equal pay the following year.
It has apparently become necessary to do it a second time…
- Once every 50 years, not too shabby.
  Too bad it becomes much harder to coordinate such strikes in larger nations, they would otherwise be extremely effective. No country could withstand half its population going on strike.
Asking from third world countries, there is a gap between genders?
- Yes, but we are also seeing reverse gender pay gaps emerge, too, in locations where there are many highly paid, highly educated workers.
  https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/03/28/young-women-are-out-earning-young-men-in-several-u-s-cities/
  
  Exceptions to the rule aren't "reverse rule".. 🤦‍♀️
- I don't know what you consider "third world", but I've picked some examples from all over the world, I'm sure you could easily find the relevant information for your own country, and spoiler alert: there will be a pay gap
  https://asiapacific.unwomen.org/en/stories/op-ed/2022/09/the-gender-pay-gap-hard-truths-and-actions-needed
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GenderinequalityinChina#Workplaceinequality
  https://borgenproject.org/gender-wage-gap-in-egypt
  https://borgenproject.org/gender-wage-gap-in-kenya
  https://www.moneyweb.co.za/financial-advisor-views/the-long-term-impact-of-gender-pay-disparity
  https://www.statista.com/statistics/803761/argentina-gender-gap-labor-market-category
  https://www.industriall-union.org/brazil-enacts-law-to-ensure-equal-pay-for-women-and-men
- Yes, and it’s substantial.
- It's huge in general but varies from country to country
  Just a note: I don't know what others say and what the mods prefer here, but I guess they'd agree there is no such thing as a "third world country". Let's call the continent or so and let us there be in one world :-)
  
  As someone from a third world country living in a first world country, yeah the difference is still there and depending on where you are in the third world, it's not decreasing.
  
  Nah man there’s still third world countries for sure. Even second world is still relevant for now.
- Not really. The easily quotable figure is 84% but in reality it doesn’t take into account important differences in profession, qualifications, type of employer, seniority, hours worked or many other things that go into deciding compensation. The only thing the gender pay gap really shows is that men hold more high paying jobs than women, or have worked in industries for longer and therefore have more compensation.
  
  The gender pay gap has narrowed over the recent decades, at least in the EU and the US, but it still exists. And this is also true for the adjusted pay gap, taking into account education, seniority, etc.
  In addition, women are overly represented in low-wage jobs such as personal care, which adds to economic inequalities.
- Studies say there are none.
  
  Where are these studies?
  
  Studies say there are none.
  No, wilfully ignorant misogynists do
  
  That’s a way to read that. Another is that the effect largely vanishes (but not completely) when you correct for the factors that cause the gender gap.
  This means that we understand HOW women are paid less, but not necessarily WHY.
  
  Studies that "correct" for the effects themselves say there are none.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Tens of thousands of women and non-binary people across Iceland, including the prime minister, are expected to stop work – both paid and unpaid – on Tuesday in the first strike of its kind in nearly half a century.
Organisers hope the women’s strike – whose confirmed participants include fishing industry workers, teachers, nurses and the PM, Katrín Jakobsdóttir – will bring society to a standstill to draw attention to the country’s ongoing gender pay gap and widespread gender-based and sexual violence.
Despite being considered a global leader on gender equality, topping the 2023 World Economic Forum’s global gender gap rankings for the 14th consecutive year, in some professions Icelandic women still earn 21% less than men, and more than 40% of women have experienced gender-based or sexual violence.
Women and non-binary people across the country are urged not to do any paid or unpaid work on Tuesday, including domestic tasks at home, “to demonstrate the importance of their contribution to society”.
The strike is calling for the gender pay gap to be closed by publishing the wages of workers in female-dominant professions, and for action against gender-based and sexual violence, with more focus on the perpetrators.
Despite the #MeToo movement and various others demanding equality in Iceland over recent years, she said women could not count on the justice system when it came to sexually violent crimes.
The original article contains 733 words, the summary contains 228 words. Saved 69%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I wish the UK would do something like this, and they have it worse than the Icelanders.
Heck, I wish they'd get up off their ass about anything. The UK railway strikers had the right idea, no idea why it's limited to them.
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Mens day off when?
- When....they strike for it?

52 comments