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.
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
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.
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.
I really don’t feel like attention/awareness is the problem. People are very aware of various problems plaquing the world… I personally don’t need more awareness, what I want to see is actionable items.
People don’t create actionable items unless they’re confronted with the idea that they need to make them.
Many people, like yourself, are waiting for something “actionable” before they do anything. The problem is, everyone is waiting for someone else to do something and thus doing nothing themselves. That’s where visibility comes in. Clearly not enough is being done, so people need to get off their ass and do something, instead of waiting for someone else to do it for them.
Many people, like yourself, are waiting for something “actionable” before they do anything.
What do you mean by that. Firstly, you don’t know me at all. Second, do you know what an actionable item is? Literally, what do you want ‘people like myself’ today, right now to do that is just going to fix everything? I’ll stand for ‘people like me’ and say, we’re ready to ‘get off our ass and do something’, but what EXACTLY is that going to be? If you’re going to get on your soap box and tell me and ‘people like me’ off, have a plan.
Because as far as I see, you’re just grand standing.
Yeah awareness is definitely needed for some issues but violence against women doesn’t seem like one of those issues. I’m pretty confident everyone is aware of it and no one is a fan except for the people doing it. I don’t think those kinds of people will care about a strike. If anything I’m guessing a woman in an abusive relationship is more likely to experience violence by participating in this than not.
If even PM herself can’t do shit, then nobody will do shit.
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.
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?
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).
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
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.
I accidentally ended up in the middle of this, and there was genuinely a huge turnout. It was good to see, and quite uplifting.
Good! Now let’s extend this movement to other countries as well. I want to see the impact women make in the workforce and what critical parts of the economy will collapse if women collectively decide to stop taking shit.
Naturally, parts of the economy that won’t come to a grinding halt need more female representation.
We need equal pay, equal opportunities, equal responsibility and equal representation.
that should do it
This is the third big strike I’ve seen and been like “wow this wouldn’t effect me at all”.
Hollywood? I’d rather it go out of business.
American Auto Union? Anyone buying American cars is a dumbass.
And for this one…
Household chores? I do all those myself.
Schools? No kids.
Hospitals? Not sick.
Maybe retail workers and pharmacists. They’d have to strike on a weekend though.
And broadly I’d benefit greatly from half the labor market dropping out. Keep on striking. Never stop.
That’s a pretty self-centred take
Unionization leads to better working conditions and pay outside of their own membership in a “rising tides lift all boats” kind of way
A rising tide lifts all boats but Hollywood sucks and these strikes for equal pay want me to make the same money as them despite the fact I do more work.
I wish the auto unions the best through.
Then you need to be paid more. A union could accomplish that.
That wouldn’t accomplish anything because if I make more for the hours I work all of a sudden there’s a pay gap again.
A pay gap for who? What the hell are you even talking about
Did you read the thread? Did you read the title of the thread? Did you read any of the previous comments?
I assumed you had a different job that has had wages stagnant as well. Am I wrong?
My specific situation is not important beyond the fact that I’m a guy so I am statistically going to work more hours and to devote more of my life to work as well as choosing my career based on income rather than any sort of life satisfaction than the average woman.
I’m not familiar with these statistics?
But it still wouldn’t matter because the compensation is still per hour, so you work more you make more. Women want the same compensation per hour, not more compensation for the same amount of work.
Your anger is exactly what women feel. Why do men get more for the same amount of work?
Sounds like you are upset about your own career choices. Just because something doesn’t seem like work to you doesn’t mean there is no value in it. The reason they get paid more than you is because their industry generates more revenue than your and/or its shared more equally.
Who’s to say you don’t do more work because you are inefficient? What value do you add, should be the question. Everyone can add value in some way. Plenty of people can take but these people who are striking are the actual creators in their industry adding all the value.
The reason they get paid more than you is because their industry generates more revenue than your and/or its shared more equally.
Wat? When was I complaining about people making more money than me?
Who’s to say you don’t do more work because you are inefficient?
Again. Wat?
We’re talking about statistical averages across the whole economy here. Statistically, the women protesting against the pay gap are protesting so that they get paid “equally” for less work.
Unless you want to suggest that women are generally more efficient in their labor than men are, you’re talking crazy here.
And if you do want to suggest that, you’re still talking crazy.
We’re talking about statistical averages across the whole economy here. Statistically, the women protesting against the pay gap are protesting so that they get paid “equally” for less work.
Who said the women do less work than you? They do equal work and are asking for equal pay. Are you insinuating that you can do more work than a woman possibly could? Because that’s just not true.
Who said the women do less work than you?
BLS data?
They do equal work
They don’t.
Are you insinuating that you can do more work than a woman possibly could?
Literally nothing I said implied that that. Plenty of individual women do as much or more work than the average guy. Statistically the average woman does less.
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other people exist.
That’s why I started my comment with “I’ve”
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out - because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me - and there was no one left to speak for me.”Nobody is “coming” for anyone here.
I’m happy to see Hollywood fail because I don’t like Hollywood. It needs to shatter and media needs to be produced by a more diverse set of areas across the country and not be in the hands of Disney and the screen actors/writers guild.
I’m happy to see these strikes from women fail because they’re demanding an end to the wage gap (aka, they want to work less and get paid the same) and yet even more draconian “safety” laws.
I wish the auto workers the best, but their cars suck and they should all be out of business.
Imagine being so colossally stupid that you think researchers don’t account for ‘hours worked’ when they investigate stuff like the wage gap…
When they do, along with other controls, the wage gap largely disappears.
Oh, so because of the decisions of a small group of investors, all the workers who work on the factories just to survive are to blame and should be unemployed? And women that want to have EQUAL rights (go look up the definition of the word, if you can’t figure out it’s meaning) should fail because of your false opinion.
God, I’ve seen a lot of pathetic people, but you fit in one of the lowest levels I’ve seen.
because of the decisions of a small group of investors, all the workers who work on the factories just to survive are to blame and should be unemployed
Ideally they’d find jobs at companies that don’t make shit cars when people in mass stop buying the American ones.
And women that want to have EQUAL rights
Like I said. They want to work less and be paid the same. They don’t want equal rights, they want special privileges.
Happy to be pathetic in your eyes. The alternative is be a thoughtless pushover.
You clearly do not, in fact, understand what the word “equal” means. They want more pay because they’re paid less. But I know me explaining to you won’t end your self-centered attitude and misogyny.
They want more pay because they’re paid less.
Pay isn’t just given to you. If you don’t work the same hours you shouldn’t be paid the same.
If you demand you get paid the same regardless, you’re a selfish asshole, not fighting for equality.
They would still work the same hours. What is your argument?
