Speaker 1: My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda
Speaker 1: Bungelung Calcottin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges
Speaker 1: that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the
Speaker 1: Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres
Speaker 1: Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the
Speaker 1: first peoples of these countries, both past and present.
Speaker 2: Good morning and welcome to the Daily os. It is Wednesday,
Speaker 2: the twenty fifth of October. I'm Billy fitz Simons.
Speaker 3: I'm Emma Gillespie.
Speaker 2: Today, tens of thousands of women and non binary people
Speaker 2: in Iceland are on strike, calling for the gender pay
Speaker 2: gap to close and an end to gender based violence.
Speaker 3: Iceland's Prime Minister and other ministers in Iceland's parliament are
Speaker 3: among those who've stopped work for a full day now.
Speaker 3: Despite Iceland's standing in the global community as being a
Speaker 3: leader in gender equity, the women who live there say
Speaker 3: there's plenty of work still to be done.
Speaker 2: Well, Unparck the strike, what happened and everything you need
Speaker 2: to know about Iceland's gender equity movement in the day dive.
Speaker 2: But first, Emma, what's making headlines.
Speaker 3: Prime Minister Anthony Albanesi will be honored with an official
Speaker 3: state dinner at the White House on Thursday morning, Australian time,
Speaker 3: as part of his diplomatic visit to Washington. Albanzi will
Speaker 3: become the third Australian Prime Minister to receive a state
Speaker 3: dinner in the US over the last twenty years, after
Speaker 3: John Howard and Scott Morrison. The PM arrived in the
Speaker 3: US Capitol on Sunday night for four days of meetings,
Speaker 3: where he had said the focus would be on the
Speaker 3: orcust defense packed and climate action.
Speaker 2: The Federal government will find a three year trial aimed
Speaker 2: at reducing the impacts of harmful social media messaging on
Speaker 2: young men. It hopes to combat arise in gender stereotyping
Speaker 2: spurred on by influential personalities like Andrew Tate. The trial
Speaker 2: will focus on boys as young as five and seek
Speaker 2: to encourage healthy relationships among men with their female counterparts,
Speaker 2: as part of an ongoing push to end violence against
Speaker 2: women and children.
Speaker 3: A collision involving two trains in Easton, Bangladesh, has killed
Speaker 3: seventeen people. A freight train was believed to have collided
Speaker 3: into a passenger train crushing two carriages. Several other passengers
Speaker 3: were injured.
Speaker 2: And today's good news the Matildas are back on Australian
Speaker 2: soil for the first time since the World Cup. They
Speaker 2: will play three Olympic qualifying matches in Perth, with their
Speaker 2: first against Iran on Thursday night.
Speaker 3: Tilli Time, Billy, I want to take you to Iceland today,
Speaker 3: where women and non binary people started their work stoppage
Speaker 3: yesterday in the name of gender equality. Forty eight years
Speaker 3: after the first all day national women's strike. Protesters are
Speaker 3: demanding that gender based violence be eliminated and that the
Speaker 3: contribution of women and non binary people be acknowledged and
Speaker 3: rewarded in Iceland.
Speaker 2: I'm excited to talk about this topic because when it
Speaker 2: was pitched in yesterday's pitch meeting, it was so interesting
Speaker 2: that the Prime Minister was part of this strike. But
Speaker 2: before we get into it, Iceland doesn't get a whole
Speaker 2: lot of time on this podcast. I can't remember the
Speaker 2: last time Simon Zara spoke about it in one of
Speaker 2: their deep dives. So Emma, before we look at the strike,
Speaker 2: can you just give us a quick reminder of anything
Speaker 2: we need to know about Iceland?
Speaker 3: Okay, yep, so rapid fire lesson on Iceland. It's a
Speaker 3: European island in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean,
Speaker 3: just south of the Arctic Circle. What I mean by
Speaker 3: that is it's cold. It's a land of extremes really
Speaker 3: so think you know, twenty four hours of sunshine in
Speaker 3: the peak of summer and really long stretches of dark winters.
Speaker 3: It's a pretty small country. We're talking about a population
Speaker 3: of less than four hundred thousand people. Its parliament is
Speaker 3: forty eight percent women, and the Prime minister, another woman,
Speaker 3: is from the left green movement.
Speaker 2: I feel like the thing that I do know about
Speaker 2: Iceland is that it's quite progressive, which those stats seem
Speaker 2: to match with. Have any strikes like this happened before?
Speaker 3: So this strike is called the National Women's Strike, and
Speaker 3: they've been happening since nineteen seventy five. That was the
Speaker 3: first national women's strike, when ninety percent of female Icelandic
Speaker 3: workers stopped work for gender equality, and the action became
Speaker 3: known as the Women's Day Off. That strike actually led
Speaker 3: to an equal pay law being passed in Iceland's parliament,
Speaker 3: so it's standing in the countries is quite respected. Twenty
Speaker 3: five thousand women protested against income inequality in the eighties,
Speaker 3: and then more recently there have been protests in the
Speaker 3: form of women leaving work the minute they stopped getting paid.
Speaker 3: So this was based off the gender pay gap and
Speaker 3: to highlight that difference. So in two thousand and five,
Speaker 3: women walked off the job at two eight pm, and
Speaker 3: that's happened every few years since as the gap has narrowed.
Speaker 3: So the last one was in twenty eighteen. The gender
Speaker 3: pay gup adjusted for working hours was sixteen percent in Iceland,
Speaker 3: but the gender income gap is much higher. Women left
Speaker 3: work in that protest at two point fifty five pm
Speaker 3: that year.
Speaker 2: So those timings of walking off the job at two
Speaker 2: eight pm and then later walking off at two fifty
Speaker 2: five is that based on business hours?
Speaker 3: Yep, that's a really good question. So this protest was
Speaker 3: based on the idea that men and women working nine
Speaker 3: to five or like a kind of standard eight hour day,
Speaker 3: that women only get paid until two fifty five pm.
Speaker 3: So for this protest to prove that point, that was
Speaker 3: you know, when they finished their.
Speaker 2: Day, okay, And so then from what you have said
Speaker 2: about this week's action, it's more of a twenty four
Speaker 2: hour strike. So how did women in Iceland participate in
Speaker 2: this week's action? You know, what did the strike actually involve?
Speaker 3: Yep, So, as you mentioned, this was a twenty four
Speaker 3: hour strike and women in Iceland haven't taken action of
Speaker 3: that extent in decades. So midnight to midnight, and it
Speaker 3: was planned by about forty organizations in Iceland who came together,
Speaker 3: including one of the country's biggest worker unions, and it
Speaker 3: was all about women refusing labor of any kind for
Speaker 3: the day, both paid and unpaid. Organizers said that the
Speaker 3: timing of it boiled down to systemic wage discrimination that
Speaker 3: they say still affects women in Iceland and gender based violence,
Speaker 3: which it described as a pandemic that must be eradicated.
Speaker 3: Organizers said, we cannot wait any longer for actions, and
Speaker 3: that's how this year's strike came about.
Speaker 2: You said something just that that's interesting. You said that
Speaker 2: there was a ban unpaid and unpaid work. I know,
Speaker 2: something that often comes up in these discussions is the
Speaker 2: idea of the household mental load and how that disproportionately
Speaker 2: impacts women. So women doing more of the cleaning in
Speaker 2: the house, doing much more of looking after kids, for example,
Speaker 2: what do we know about the element of those protests.
Speaker 2: I don't think I've heard about a strike in that
Speaker 2: area before.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is a really interesting part of the
Speaker 3: organized action. People participating were told not to go to work,
Speaker 3: so their jobs, but they were also told to refuse
Speaker 3: unpaid work, like you say, to avoid taking on expected
Speaker 3: unpaid labor such as childcare, housework, the emotional labor of
Speaker 3: delegating tasks, and strike organizers said for this one day,
Speaker 3: we expect husbands, fathers, brothers, and uncles to take on
Speaker 3: the responsibilities related to family and home, for example, preparing
Speaker 3: breakfast and lunchboxes, remembering birthdays of relatives, buying a present
Speaker 3: for your mother in law, making a dentist appointment for
Speaker 3: your kid, etc.
Speaker 2: I'm sure there are a lot of people who are
Speaker 2: listening who think that sounds pretty nice. What do we
Speaker 2: know about the scale of this strike, how many people
Speaker 2: are expected to take part.
Speaker 3: So Apart from the labor stoppages, women and non binary
Speaker 3: people in Iceland also gathered all around the country to
Speaker 3: demonstrate at rallies a few hours ago. The biggest gathering
Speaker 3: was organized in the capital of Rekuvic, but in terms
Speaker 3: of how widespread the participation was you kind of only
Speaker 3: have to look at Iceland's government. This is a near
Speaker 3: majority female parliament. They have a female Prime Minister, Katrine
Speaker 3: yak Abstrata, and the PM said she'd be doing the strike.
Speaker 3: She said she expected many of her colleagues to do
Speaker 3: the same. So when you've got, you know, one of
Speaker 3: the most prominent people in the country telling you that
Speaker 3: she endorses these protests, you've got to think that's a
Speaker 3: good enough excuse for many women to join in themselves.
Speaker 2: As I said earlier when we were talking about a
Speaker 2: really brief overview of Iceland, I had this perception, and
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of Australians would have this
Speaker 2: perception that Iceland is quite a progressive place when it
Speaker 2: comes to gender equality. I mean, you said before in
Speaker 2: your overview that forty eight percent of its parliament is women.
Speaker 2: So is that not the case that it is quite
Speaker 2: progressive when it comes to gender equality.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean absolutely. It does certainly have that global reputation,
Speaker 3: and that doesn't come from nothing. It's long been seen
Speaker 3: as this country leading the charge when it comes to equality,
Speaker 3: and that's reflected you know, the World Economic Forums Global
Speaker 3: Gender Gap Index ranked Iceland as the best country in
Speaker 3: the world for gender equality this year. That was for
Speaker 3: the fourteenth time. But what has become clearer from these
Speaker 3: strikes is that nomic disparities do still remain between men
Speaker 3: and women in Iceland. You know, even the best place
Speaker 3: for gender equity in the world still isn't one hundred
Speaker 3: percent equal. In twenty eighteen, Iceland introduced laws requiring businesses
Speaker 3: to prove that they were paying men and women equally,
Speaker 3: so that has helped with understanding the scope of the issue.
Speaker 3: But the PM said Iceland hasn't reached its goals for
Speaker 3: full gender equality, and she said we are still tackling
Speaker 3: the gender based wage gap, which is unacceptable in twenty
Speaker 3: twenty three, so what do we know about the wage
Speaker 3: gap in Iceland? Then, interestingly, as you kind of pointed out,
Speaker 3: one of the strike organizers and union leaders actually told
Speaker 3: The Guardian that Iceland is talked about like it's an
Speaker 3: equality paradise. But she said an equality paradise should not
Speaker 3: have a twenty one percent wage gap and forty percent
Speaker 3: of women experiencing gender based or sexual violence in their lifetime.
Speaker 3: Iceland's ranking as this global leader in gender equity, you know,
Speaker 3: it's based on a combination of factors, so not just
Speaker 3: the pay gap, not just wage equality, but also workforce participation,
Speaker 3: education rates, representation in parliament. It's number one on all
Speaker 3: of those things, but that doesn't mean it's ranked highest
Speaker 3: in every category. So, for example, it's fifth in the
Speaker 3: world for wage equality for similar work.
Speaker 2: Just quickly, you're talking about this has made me interested.
Speaker 2: Do you know where Australia ranks?
Speaker 3: Okay, I looked this up because I had a feeling.
Speaker 3: I'm often great minds. I'm often prepping thinking what would
Speaker 3: Billy do? What would Billy say? And I wondered if
Speaker 3: you would so, Billy, I'm happy or not that happy
Speaker 3: to tell you we're a little bit further back on
Speaker 3: that one at fifty third. Wow. But even though Iceland
Speaker 3: is leading the pack on so many of these issues,
Speaker 3: it did actually slip in a couple of categories in
Speaker 3: the Global Gender Gap Report. Its rankings dropped in indexes
Speaker 3: of economic participation and opportunity and educational attainment. So that's
Speaker 3: how many women are going to school, what's their highest
Speaker 3: education level. They all slipped between twenty twenty two and
Speaker 3: twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Just going back to the strike this week? What did
Speaker 2: men do whilst women were on strike?
Speaker 3: So the National Women's Strike explicitly stated that men should
Speaker 3: not strike with them on the twenty fourth of October.
Speaker 3: What they did say is that men should show their
Speaker 3: support by taking on additional responsibilities, so including in the
Speaker 3: home like childcare, and by picking up the slack at
Speaker 3: work too to help their female and non binary colleagues
Speaker 3: to be able to take the time to participate in
Speaker 3: the strike. A lot of media and Iceland wrote that
Speaker 3: they were expecting schools to close on Tuesday, or at
Speaker 3: least some schools to close or be operating at reduced
Speaker 3: capacity or shortened hours. Strike organizers said that since a
Speaker 3: majority of the workers in those fields would be on strike,
Speaker 3: fathers would therefore have to make arrangements for the day.
Speaker 2: So to end, what are the next steps for the
Speaker 2: women's movement in Iceland?
Speaker 3: Government has launched this investigation in Iceland into how female
Speaker 3: dominated professions are valued in comparison to fields traditionally dominated
Speaker 3: by men. So, for example, there are sectors of education
Speaker 3: and health in Iceland that are ninety percent dominated by
Speaker 3: women who were paid less than men. Strike organizers were
Speaker 3: also seeking higher wages for Iceland's population of immigrant women.
Speaker 3: They make up around twenty two percent of the country's
Speaker 3: labor markets. So we'll wait and see if there's any
Speaker 3: movement there. And there will also be a presidential election
Speaker 3: in Iceland next year, so we know. Iceland's representation of
Speaker 3: women in parliament is among the highest in the world.
Speaker 3: The Prime Minister is its head of government. She is
Speaker 3: a woman, but its head of state is a president
Speaker 3: and right now that's Gundi Johanneson. He was incredibly popular
Speaker 3: at the last election. But it'll be interesting to see
Speaker 3: if any progress on these issues shifts anything in Iceland's
Speaker 3: political landscape.
Speaker 2: Interesting topic. It's not often you hear about the prime
Speaker 2: minister of a country participating in a strike. So Emma,
Speaker 2: thank you so much, thank you for having me, and
Speaker 2: thank you so much for listening to The Daily Yours.
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