No one was thinking about whether it was an extra burden on women"
Ásta S. Fjelsted is the CEO of Festi and she wrote an op-ed in Morgunblaðið this morning encouraging women to attend the solidarity meeting tomorrow at Arnarhóll.
Ásta S. Fjeldsted, the CEO of Festi, the mother company of Krónan, Elko, N1 and Bakkinn, recounts her mother’s tales of the Women’s Day Off in an op-ed in Morgunblaðið this morning, while encouraging women to attend Arnarhóll with the words “Congratulations on tomorrow, women and gender-queers! See you at Arnarhóll.”
According to Fjeldsted, who was born after the first Women’s Day Off was held in 1975, her mother often recalled the day later. Her parents lived in the Fellin neighbourhood in Breiðholt, with two children, both working full time at Hólabrekka elementary school and building a new house in a new place.
“It was not uncommon to do more than one job during those years, but my mother’s extra jobs, which she never talked much about, were of course ignored,” says Fjeldsted of the household chores her mother did, although she notes that her father was also very hard-working.
“You just did it – no one was thinking about whether it was an extra burden on women,” she says. “Buying, cooking and cleaning, making lunch, buying presents, sewing Christmas- and summer dresses, making sure that the home-accounting was done and that bills were paid – ideally on time, was not called the third shift.”
Her father had recently been made the principal at Hólabrekka elementary school in 1975 and Fjeldsted says that her mother described how he stood basically paralysed after she handed him their little one, , a little over a year old, and said she was gone for the day to Arnarhóll to protest with a lot of other teachers at the school, most of whom where women.
“My late father described it as a moment when he realized how much he and society as a whole depended on women’s work. How important women were to society, its growth and future success. He became more aware of the situation of women afterwards and I think he started recruiting women to key positions, managerial positions, and encouraging them. Even so, with a little smile in his eyes, he said that they were usually smarter and more accomplished than men!” Fjeldsted recalls.
“This day is important and it has put Iceland on the map as a strong and successful nation in the fight for gender equality. “I’m grateful to stand on the shoulders of the women who came before me and will do my best to improve the situation of those who are need some help in our otherwise good society,” Fjeldsted concludes her op-ed by encouraging women to attend the solidarity meeting at Arnarhóll tomorrow.
