President, who will join ‘Women’s Day Off’, says Iceland is not free from feminist backlash being seen around world
Iceland is the only country to have closed the gender gap by more than 90%, according to the World Economic Forum, and, for the first time in its history, every national leadership position – including president, prime minister, bishop and police chief – is now held by a woman.
But as people go on strike on Friday to mark the 50th anniversary of “kvennafrí” (“Women’s Day Off”) strike, the protest that kickstarted a global equality revolution, the Icelandic president warned that her country was not immune to gender-related “red flags” and a global “backlash” against feminism.
Halla Tómasdóttir, who last year became Iceland’s second female president in an election in which 75% of the population voted for female candidates, put her country’s world-leading success at improving gender equality down to five decades of work that followed the 1975 strike.
Iceland, she told the Guardian, was “powered by two sustainable energies: geothermal power and girl power”.
