Womens Movements in Iceland and the Shaping of the Welfare State

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Womens Movements in Iceland and the Shaping of
the Welfare State

• ACWW European Area Conference 17-21 May 2005

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Icelandic schoolgirls at the end of the 19th
Century
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Women in Iceland

• This week the World Economic Forum published a
  report on Womens Empowerment Measuring the
  Global Gender Gap.
• Iceland is number three, out of 58 countries in
  closing the gender gap, after Sweden and Norway,
  before Denmark and Finland.
• Thats a good result, but it only tells parts of
  the story.

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Women in Iceland

• Womens participation in the labour force is the
  highest in the world.
• Unemployment among women is very low (2.3), but
  still higher than mens.
• Women are 31 of the members of local
  governments.
• Women are also 31 of the members of parliament
  (nr. 15 in the world).
• The maternity death rate is very low.
• Infant mortality is 2.4 out of 1000 children.

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Women in Iceland

• Parental leave is nine months. Three for the
  mother, three for the father and three to share.
• Local governments organize childcare for children
  2-6 years old, even younger.
• Women are 60 of university students.
• Women are very visible in the Icelandic society.
  
• But at the same time...

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Women in Iceland

• Women earn in average 62 of mens wages (2003).
• There is a 7-15 pay gap which cannot be
  explained with anything but gender.
• The labour market is unbelievably sex-segregated.
• Women still do most of the housework, which means
  at least double workload (2003).
• Gender based violence against women is no less in
  Iceland than in other countries.

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Women in Iceland

• Sexual abuse of children also seems to be no less
  than in other countries.
• We are struggling with pornography in the public
  space, prostitution and examples of trafficking
  in women.
• Women are hardly to be seen as directors of big
  companies or ministries, not even as board
  members.
• The academia is very male dominated.

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Women in Iceland

• The good results can be explained with the
  welfare system which has been under development
  for almost 100 years.
• But the bad sides show that we in the Nordic
  countries have far to go in order to close the
  gender gap.
• The leaders are mostly men, here as in most other
  countries. We must increase the representation of
  women! It means change!

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The Leaders of the Western World 2004
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Women in Iceland

• The report Womens Empowerment Measuring the
  Global Gender Gap doesnt tell the story of
  womens work for decades in bridging the gender
  gap.
• The report doesnt tell the story of womens
  enormous contribution to the shaping of the
  welfare state in Iceland.
• The report doesnt say that this good result is
  the outcome of Icelandic womens endless work for
  bettering the society for more than 130 years.

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Women in Iceland

• This year, 2005, women in Iceland have a lot to
  celebrate, a lot to pay tribute to.
• 130 years since the founding of one of the
  leading womens society in charity work and in
  the campaign for civil rights for women
  Thorvaldssensfélagið.
• 120 years since the leading feminist in the
  Womens Rights Movement Bríet Bjarnhéðinsdóttir
  wrote her first feminist article.
• 110 years since two of the first womens
  magazines were founded. One of them was run by
  Bríet.

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Bríet Bjarnhéðinsdóttir
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Celebrating the Right to Vote in 1915
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• 90 years since women got the right to vote for
  parliament.
• 75 years since The Icelandic Womens Societies
  was founded.
• 75 years since the opening of the State hospital,
  which was a womens issue.
• 35 years since the founding of the radical Red
  Stocking Movement.
• 30 years since the UN womens year.

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The UN Womens year24th of October 1975
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• 25 years since Ms. Vigdís Finnbogadóttir was
  elected as the President of Iceland.
• 20 years since the ending of the UN Womens
  Decade.
• 15 years since the opening of the Centre for
  Victims of Sexual Abuse.
• 10 years since the UN Beijing conference.
• The womens movements are going to use this year
  not only to celebrate, but also to strengthen
  their Programme of Action.

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The background

• Gender research has shown that the womens
  movements have their roots in three main
  ideologies.
• The Enlightenment movement in the 18th century
  and the following liberalism in the 19th century.
• Socialism in the 19th century.
• Christian protestant movements in the 19th
  century.

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The Inauguration of Vigdís Finnbogadóttir
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The background

• In analyzing the womens movements, Nordic
  historians have identified either two categories
  or four.
• 1. Equal rights movements and 2. Welfare
  movements (Ida Blom).
• 1. Political feminism, 2. Moral feminism, 3.
  Social feminism and 4. The housewives movement
  (Gro Hagemann).
• Feminism in the broadest sense means working for
  bettering the situation of women.

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The Icelandic Womens Movements

• In the 19th century and until the 1920s the
  Icelandic womens movements were characterized by
  all of these ideologies mixed together.
• They stressed the need of womens human rights,
  at the same time as they wanted better moral,
  welfare and healthy homes, where most women
  played the important role of mothers and wives.
• At the same time they were very much involved in
  different kinds charity work.

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The Icelandic Womens Movements the arguments

• The feminists said that some women had to leave
  the private space and enter the public space in
  order to represent women.
• Women wanted their voice to be heard in society
  in order to
• Secure womens rights, protect the homes and
  support the poor, old, sick, orphans and single
  mothers.

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The Icelandic Womens Movements the arguments

• Women had gained important knowledge and
  experience as mothers, they should also become
  the mothers of society or social mothers .
• Women saw social problems that men did not see,
  or did not care about, and they wanted to deal
  with them.
• This is what we in gender researh call welfare
  feminism.
• These ideas were the main arguments for women
  running on their own for local governments and
  the parliament in the period from 1908-1926.

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The Icelandic Womens Movements

• In the late 1920s these ideas met growing
  resistance from men and women, saying that the
  role of women was in the home.
• Women should be educated as mothers and
  housewives.
• Women should not be active in the public space
  after marriage.
• These ideas became dominating after the 1930s
  and so they were until the New Womens Movement
  entered the scene in the 1960s.

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The Icelandic Womens Movements

• What was special for the Icelandic womens
  movements was their charity work alongside their
  political work and cooperation between different
  movements across political and ideological lines.
• The Womens Rights Association worked beside
  women from the White Ribbon, the first womens
  labour union in Reykjavik and women from the
  Free church.

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The Icelandic Womens Movements

• The leader of one of the most successful
  societies in charity work, The Ring
  (Hringurinn) was one of the most active
  feminists, supporting womens political actions
  to secure their participation in politics, until
  the end of her life.
• Another speciality of the Icelandic womens
  movements was (and is) indeed their different
  political actions, especially the womens lists
  and the success they had.

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The Right to Vote

• Widows and single women who owned property and
  paid taxes got the right to vote for local
  elections in 1882.
• Very few women used that right until Bríet
  Bjarnhéðinsdóttir became a widow in 1902.
• In 1907 Bríet and a group of women formed the
  Womens Rights Association. Its main goal was
  the suffrage.
• In 1907 married women in Reykjavík got the right
  to vote and to run for local elections.

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The Right to Vote

• At the beginning of the year 1908 the womens
  organisations had a chance to show that they
  wanted equal rights, that they would use their
  rights and that they had a social programme to
  fight for.
• They decided to run on their own for elections.
  In 1908 they got four women (out of 15) into the
  City Council of Reykjavik and were represented
  there until 1922.

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The Right to Vote

• Icelandic women got the right to vote for
  parliament in 1915.
• In 1922 the first woman was elected as a member
  of parliament from a womens list.
• She was a welfare feminist and represented the
  womens movements as well as she could until the
  end of her period in 1930.
• The last womens list did run in 1926, but got
  very little support and a lot of resistance.

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Ingibjörg H. Bjarnason the First Woman in
Parliament
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Welfare feminism the issues

• Temperance violence against women.
• Tuberculoses.
• Poverty
• Rights for children born outside marriage.
• Rights for single mothers to keep their children
  and get financial support.
• Equal social and financial rights inside
  marriage.
• Equal pay for equal work.

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Welfare feminism the issues

• Financial security for old people.
• Decent housing for poor families.
• Decent working conditions for women in the
  fishing industry and washing.
• Meals for children in schools.
• Day care for poor mothers children.
• Building hospitals and sanatoriums.

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The State Hospital
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Washing in Reykjavík
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Women Working in the Fishing Industry
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The Womens Movements and their success

• Little by little these issues became a part of
  the legislation and the welfare system which
  began to develop in the 1920s.
• The womens movements kept on with their work
  after 1930, not least the Icelandic Womens
  Societies in building up education for housewives
  and in all kinds of charity work.

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Modern Womens Movements in Iceland

• The Womens Ward at the State Hospital and The
  Childrens Hospital are the most significant
  outcome of that work.
• The womens movements were not as visible as
  before, but they were alive.
• In the 1960s things began to change. New
  contraceptives changed womens lives. Women got
  more and more education and joined the labour
  force.

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Modern Womens Movements in Iceland

• In 1970 the Red Stocking Movement was established
  and the womens movements became visible again.
• The tradition of cooperation and political
  actions continued.
• Many new movements have been established since
  the 1970s. Womens lists were run between
  1982-1999.
• Since 1975, the UN womens year, womens movement
  have worked together on different issues.

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Modern Womens Movements in Iceland

• They have stressed the importance of womens
  work, paid and unpaid, in society.
• Legislation on equal rights (1976)
• Bridging the wage gap.
• Womens health issues.
• Violence against women.
• New legislation on gender based violence.

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Modern Womens Movements in Iceland

• To strengthen womens human rights in the
  constitution.
• Making buying of sex/prostitution illegal.
• Increasing the representation of women
• Empowerment of women.
• Dialogue with men.
• Share responsibilities.
• Support gender research.

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Conclusions

• The womens movements played a significant role
  in shaping the welfare society we now live in.
• The womens movements managed to change the legal
  status of women, from being a property, to
  becoming an independent individual, an accepted
  citizen of the Icelandic society.
• But, we still have far to go to bridge the gender
  gap.