Preview above: The Viking nation of Iceland has become a feminist utopia. Watch 'The Best Place To Be A Woman',
For over a decade now, Iceland has sat at the top of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Gender Gap Report.
Using measurements across economic, education, health and political criteria, the Nordic nation is calculated to be the best country in the world to be a woman.
Its Prime Minister, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, says long-standing policies to assist women in the workforce have been a lead driver in narrowing the gender gap.
Writing for the World Economic Forum, Jakobsdóttir explains:
“Two public policies are worth mentioning in this context. First, universal high-quality childcare transformed women’s opportunities to participate in the economy and in society at large. As women still carry the bulk of child rearing, childcare costs prevent women across the world from joining or re-joining the labour market and/or participating in politics.
“Second, well-funded shared parental leave – with a use-it-or-lose-it proportion for fathers – addresses the systematic discrimination women have suffered at work, due to the possibility alone that they might have children. If men are as likely to take a break from work to care for children, this structural discrimination diminishes.”
The moves have led to a change in the country’s workforce, where eight out of 10 women participate in what is the highest female employment rate in the world.
However, despite retaining its top spot in the list, Iceland’s score in the WEF’s report has dropped in some areas. It remains the best performer in the Political Empowerment sub index, but has fallen in Economic Participation and Opportunity, due to an increased gap in women among legislator, senior officials and manager positions.
The Global Gender Gap report also fails to include violence, harassment and discrimination, something Jakobsdóttir acknowledges:
“Most recently the #metoo movement exposed systematic harassment, violence and everyday sexism that women at all levels of Icelandic society are subjected to. Moreover, the movement revealed the multiple discriminations suffered by migrant women in a country that has throughout history been relatively ethnically homogenous.
“It remains alarming that no country in the world has managed to find ways to eliminate violence against women. Violence against women is both a cause and a consequence of women’s inequality.”
So, what is the country doing differently to make it the most equal society in the world? And what can Australia, which dropped dropped from 35th place in 2017 to 39th in 2018 learn?
Dateline travelled to Iceland to explore how it became the world’s capital of gender equality and look at what impact it is having on the idea of masculinity in society.
From the women who sparked Iceland’s feminist revolution in 1975, the CEO of a gender-neutral kindergarten trying to reverse gender stereotypes and promote gender equality and a sex education class with teens learning about sexual violence and consent, Iceland is unravelling the idea of gender stereotypes.
