The strike that helped close the gender pay gap in Iceland. Subscribe and turn on notifications 🔔 so you don't miss any videos: http://goo.gl/0bsAjO Iceland has made significant progress with its gender pay gap in the past 50 years. In 1975, Icelandic women made around 40 percent less than what men made. Today, that number is around 10 percent, making Iceland one of the few countries in the world where women are paid almost as much as men. To understand how Iceland made so much progress, you have to take a look at what happened almost 50 years ago. In 1970, a radical feminist group called the Redstockings formed in response to outdated ideas in Iceland surrounding issues like violence against women, reproductive rights, and women’s labor. The Redstockings were known for their loud and public demonstrations, and in 1975 they proposed their biggest idea yet: a women’s strike. A day when women would collectively refuse to work at home and in the office to prove their economic worth to society. The idea was divisive at first, but slowly, women from different political backgrounds got on board. To make the idea more accessible, they changed the name to “Women’s Day Off,” or “Kvennafrí,” and planned the strike from the ground up. It was a massive success. An estimated 90 percent of Icelandic women refused to work that day, and it shut down the country. Flights were canceled without flight attendants, and schools were closed without teachers. Men had to bring children to work because there was no child care at home. The effects of Kvennafrí were felt across the country. Iceland quickly passed its first Gender Equality Act and soon after elected its first female president — and the world's first woman to be elected democratically. In this episode of Missing Chapter, we walk through how Icelandic women shut down their country, and talk to one of the women who helped do it. Disclaimer: The views in the video above are not those of the United Nations. Sources: Read about Kvennafrí, and other Icelandic women’s history, at the Women’s History Archive: https://kvennasogusafn.is/index.php?page=english For our data on the gender pay gap, we relied on a few sources: https://data.oecd.org/earnwage/gender-wage-gap.htm https://hagstofa.is/utgafur/utgafur-kjararannsoknarnefndar/ https://www.weforum.org/reports/global-gender-gap-report-2023/in-full/benchmarking-gender-gaps-2023/ This reporting about the Day Off was used too: https://jacobin.com/2019/10/iceland-redstockings-womens-strike-feminism Listen to songs from Kvennafrí on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/album/790po7WG1AzdIIPKrERMUh Vox is an explanatory newsroom on a mission to help everyone understand our weird, wonderful, complicated world, so that we can all help shape it. Part of that mission is keeping our work free. You can help us do that by making a gift: http://www.vox.com/givenow Watch our full video catalog: http://goo.gl/IZONyE Follow Vox on TikTok: http://tiktok.com/@voxdotcom Check out our articles: https://www.vox.com/ Listen to our podcasts: https://www.vox.com/podcasts