"What rights don't we have? Eh…"
Organizers of Iceland's strike against "inequality" couldn't name a single one.
Thousands of women and “nonbinary” people in Iceland joined a one-day “strike” last Tuesday, October 24, to “protest workplace inequality.”
“Iceland is often viewed as some sort of equality paradise,” one of the organizers told the New York Times. “If we’re going to live up to that name, we need to move forward — and we’re not stopping until full gender equality is reached.” (By the way, it’s SEX, not “gender”).
I heard the tail end of an interview on NPR with one of the strike organizers. She was asked what rights Icelandic women, in the "world’s most equal country”, had not yet achieved. She couldn’t answer that, except that “there is still a long way to go.” Of course,"the patriarchy" was a major problem. NPR doesn’t believe in reality and biology and thus cannot be called a real news organization, so it’s not surprising that the reporter didn’t press for further answers.
According to information from Statistics Iceland, "the adjusted wage gap between men and women in 2020 was 4.1%... the [sex]-based division of the labor market…largely explains the wage gap that still exists... Men who live alone were more likely than women to fall below the low income threshold. Over 23% of single men were below the limit compared to 9% of single women." These numbers, of course, didn’t make it into international news reports which only reported the unadjusted wage gap which is 21%.
Much progress has been made on equality issues since the first women's strike – this one was for women and “nonbinary” people, whatever that’s supposed to mean, so it cannot be called a women’s strike – in 1975, a fact the organizers don’t want to acknowledge. However, when they cannot even name a single right that needs to be fought for on behalf of women, it’s perfectly legitimate to ask if there is really a need for a “women's strike." Especially because in Iceland the women's rights movement has degenerated into cult onhangers who are happy to give anyone not only the hard-earned rights of women but the literal definition of what it means to be a woman. It means anything! Whatever! Anyone and everyone is welcome into the female sex!
Of course, it goes without saying that those who cannot define the word "woman" cannot fight for women's rights. The organizers who "intend to publish a ‘dunce’ list of employers who didn’t go along with the participation of their women and “kvárar” employees in the strike,” are clearly in that group. "Kvár" – for those who live in the real world – is "a gender-neutral word, analogous to male and female," as if sexless individuals exist in reality. This word-grotesquerie is yet another example of the pervasive anti-social linguistic engineering of trans ideology.
The strike should make it easier for employers to maintain their own lists of Deluxe Citizens – the entitled narcissists, attention-seekers, and self-appointed victims whose linguistic abuses and delusions are mercilessly foisted on co-workers and fellow citizens with the state’s encouragement and enabling.
I hope that on future women's and “kvára” strike days, Icelandic men, who bear the burden of building and maintaining the "patriarchy" – workers, carpenters, fishermen, mechanics, farmers, electricians, plumbers, policemen, car mechanics, truck drivers, etc., etc. – will call in “non-binary” for the day and sit at home, if only to draw attention to the insanity of the ideology that has poisoned all institutions of Icelandic and western societies and is an attack on truth and society itself.
There is a very good answer to your question, and it lies at the very centre of not just the gender issue but modern leftist activism as a whole. Political demands need a driving rationale, appeals to fundamental values like equality and justice provide it. In the olden days when inequality for women was flagrant the activists couldn't say we want these changes "just because we get more money" or "because it benefits me personally" - these would not be enough (although the self interest of half of the population should actually be perfectly valid justification), they had to appeal to greater values - it was this that morally forced the majority to consent to the demands.
"I'm protesting because I just want more money" is easy to say no to. "It is unjust to pay me less because it is against fundamental moral principle to treat people equally" is much more powerful - and of course was successful. Hence appeals to human rights are used rather than just exclaiming self interest.
However as time went on and egalitarianism became more entrenched the systematic injustices got smaller - and there was less to appeal to. So the activists needed to exaggerate whatever remains to drive their demands. We are at the point where arguably the claims are being invented simply to justify making demands that are actually purely political in nature. And that is why groups of people who were disadvantaged in the past are making even more aggressive claims than they did back them despite their lives being better than ever and are denouncing Western society as evil and oppressive despite the fact that that was the very culture that gave them all those advancements.
Noticing this phenomenon was one of the main experiences that turned me away from being a "leftist" or progressive - although those are my basic values.
Elegantly written. It rings true to me.