The Icelandic Women’s Rights Association

Established in 1907, the Icelandic Women’s Rights Association (IWRA) was the first formal organisation of Icelandic women focusing its efforts on the struggle for political equality between men and women, as well as equal opportunities in education and profession. On IWRA´s 100th anniversary the association can look back on many victories and goals that have been reached but still there are continuing gender inequality issues to fight for. In spite of all the years and efforts, IWRA will operate “…until full gender equality is reached”, as the association’s slogan goes.

Already in 1908 women gained local suffrage in Iceland and the right to hold office. In 1915 women over 40 years old gained the same rights on the national level. These were the main objectives and issues in the beginning of the 20th century, whereas in recent years IWRA's emphasis has increasingly been on the struggle for full and real gender equality, since a law of equal gender rights has not been able to activate gender mainstreaming in society at large. This especially concerns political representation in Parliament, leadership in financial institutions as well as in state run and private companies, representation in boards of large companies, etc. Other issues of the IWRA are the struggle against the wage gap between men and women, the fight against violence against women, trafficking in women, prostitution, women’s access to property and money, etc.

IWRA has about 500 members (Iceland has a population of about 300.000 people) of both sexes although most of them are women. The structure of the Association is cross-political, so, the political parties represented in the Parliament appoint their representative to the Board, up until now only women. At present there are 13 women in the Board of IWRA.

The Board meets approximately once a month and discusses the pressing issues of today’s equal rights struggle. Upon request by the Icelandic parliament and individual government ministers, IWRA studies and formally comments on parliamentary proposals and on other matters concerning questions of equality of men and women. IWRA has a representative on the Equal Rights Council of Iceland and is a founding member of the Icelandic Human Rights Centre as well as a member of various organisations on women affairs.

Additionally, IWRA regularly hosts meetings on gender equality and women’s issues open for public attendance, conferences, seminars and related events. The association is also active on the cooperation with sister organisations in the Nordic and Baltic states, as well as affiliated with the International Alliance of Women (IAW). One member of IWRA´s Executive Board is now a Board member of IAW.

Women’s representation in the Icelandic Parliament, the Althing, is now 30% and out of 12 government ministers four of them are women. Unfortunately, women’s representation in the Parliament has not yet reached a higher percentage. The pay gap still exists and is measured from 6-16% depending on the occupational categories.

Women’s participation in the labour market in Iceland is among the highest in the world. One of the reasons for this is considered to be the Icelandic Parents leave, which is nine months in total, three months labelled for the mother and three months for the father and the remaining three months, is for the parents to choose which one of the two will use. About 90% of all fathers make use of their leave at least to some extent. A common composition is for the mother to take six months leave and the father three months. This arrangement is considered to play an important role of gender balanced labour market and to increase the equal responsibilities of the mother and father of child upbringing and the household.

Although Iceland has reached far in many aspects toward a gender balanced society compared to many other European societies, we still have a long way to go. Therefore IWRA will not put its operations on hold until full gender equality has been reached.

Halldóra Traustadóttir, Manager of the Icelandic Women´s Rights Association