the people who told the story of the day iceland stood still

(not my words, not edited by me for your information)

DIRECTOR PAMELA HOGAN

Pamela Hogan is an Emmy award-winning filmmaker, journalist, and media executive. Her film Looks Like Laury Sounds Like Laury was hailed as one of “The Best TV Shows of 2015” by The New York Times. She was Co-creator and Executive Producer of the PBS series Women, War & Peace, the first ever to explore war and peacemaking from women’s point of view, and directed the kick-off episode, I Came to Testify, about the courageous Bosnian women who broke history’s great silence and testified about their wartime rape and sexual enslavement, winning a landmark victory. Seen by 12 million viewers, the series won the Overseas Press Club’s Murrow Award for Best Documentary and a Television Academy Honor for using television to promote social change. Hogan’s episode, I Came to Testify, won the ABA’s Silver Gavel for excellence in fostering the public’s understanding of law. She was Executive Producer of PBS’s international series Wide Angle, working with global filmmakers on 70 hours of character-driven documentaries illuminating under-reported stories. There she originated Emmy-winning Ladies First about women’s leadership in post-genocide Rwanda; and launched the longitudinal Time for School series, following 7 children in 7 countries fighting the odds for a basic education. Recognized with a National Council for Research on Women Making a Difference for Women award, she is an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism.

ME: And you wouldn’t believe how young and “cute” she looks. I apologize for the word, but she does. Maybe it’s becasue I’lm so old.

PRODUCER HRAFNHILDUR GUNNARSDÓTTIR

A native of Reykjavik, Iceland, Hrafnhildur Gunnarsdóttir has produced numerous acclaimed films on the Icelandic women’s movement, including Women in Red Stockings about the 1970s feminist wave and The Kitchen Sink Revolution on the movement’s 1980s evolution, which won the Icelandic Academy’s prestigious Edda Award. She also won the Edda for directing Her Age, a series of 52 Icelandic women’s history shorts, broadcast weekly on Icelandic Public Television RUV to commemorate the 100th anniversary of women's suffrage. Most recently she completed her magnum opus, a 5-part series titled People Like That. Filmed over 27 years, the series chronicles the 40-year struggle for gay rights in Iceland. She also recently completed The Vasulka Effect about Woody and Steina Vasulka, founders of The Kitchen in New York City, who are hailed as “the grandparents of video art,” Both People Like That and The Vasulka Effect won numerous local awards including the Icelandic Academy Art Award. The Vasulka Effect was awarded Best Portrait at the International Festival of Films (FIFA) in Canada. A filmmaker and activist, Hrafnhildur served as president of the gay alliance of Iceland, Samtökin ’78. She received her BFA from the San Francisco Art Institute.

ME: I read elsewhere that she was with her mother on the Day and she went to bed that night convinced that the world would be perfect in the morning. It took a little longer than that. Some of us (?) are still working at it.

What a wonderful day!

The Hot Docs Festival is on this week and the very special film I attended celebrated the upcoming fiftieth anniversary of The Day Iceland Stood Still, an account of an October day in 1975 when 90% of the women in Iceland took the day off. We were privileged to view the premiere of the doc of an event that has had a lasting effect on women everywhere in the world.

The women began by calling it.a strike but that seemed too belligerent and threatening so they just suggested that they’d like to to take a day off. The first organizers reached out to women in groups and organizations and unions throughout the country, including small “Sewing Societies” of women who didn’t sew but who liked to get together regularly to talk. The big businesses didn’t like the women’ s idea.. Strike or day off, they didn’t like it.

What would happen if people couldn’t do their banking or shop for groceries or get their hair done (or cut) ? How could they get along without the newspaper to tell them what was going on in the world? The newspaper prepared the news and the women worked as usual before The Day but then no one was there to print it or publish or distribute it so—no news.

Wives and mothers warned their husbands they’d have to take care of the house and kids, and meals. Many of them delivered their pre-school children to the men at work to look after them tor the day. Older school girls joined their mothers in a joint act of independence.

Many of the activities, or lack thereof, and women, young then, were photographed at the time. The whole day was close enough to present time that young women were caught then and now, older.

And they had something to say, about what they did and what they were thinking and what they are thinking now.

“We loved our male chauvinist pigs,” one woman ssid. “We just wanted to change them a little.”

Because the Day Off had a powerful effect.

Within a few weeks a law was passed in Iceland granting women equal pay for equal work.

We’re all still working on that one. When I was widowed, women were earning—being PAID—about 53 cents on the dollar that men were getting. (My stats aren’t accurate, but they’re indicative.) Now it’s up to about 73 cents. Maybe trays weigh less.

Ah, but women don’t do the heavy lifting that men do. That was the common rebuttal. I have been in dining rooms at events where equal pay for equal work was the subject, when the guest speaker stopped a waitress clearing a table, asking her to allow her tray with its burden to be weighed—and guess what? Too heavy for a woman to lift.

We all—still—have stories to tell, though not quite as bad here as in other countries.

Inequities exist.

As a result of their Day Off, so long ago (not that long), Icelandic women are.now 10% away from closing the gender gap, committed to full equality in the next few (how many?) years.

Iceland is considered to be the best place for a woman to live.