"In 1975, 90 percent of Icelandic women went on strike, though they did not call it that. They called it Kvennafrídagurinn, or Women's Day Off. A day off from factory work, from housework, from care work, from all kinds of vital work that often goes unacknowledged and unpaid to this day. In the fifty years since then, Iceland has become the global leader in gender equity and the first country in the world to elect a female president. Its government is currently led by women, who serve as prime minister, president, a majority of the cabinet leaders, and nearly half of the members of Althing, the world's oldest operating parliament, continually running since 930 C.E.
Much work remains to be done. In the fiction and poetry collected below, Icelandic women writers invoke the incongruence of living in a country with gender balanced policies alongside high rates of domestic violence, persistent pay disparities, and other forms of misogynistic disregard."
-Kristen Millares Young (she/her)
