The Know Daily - Tuesday 24 October

_{Read in 5m 32s ∙ Listening to Obongjayar}

The number of nesting seabirds on Lundy island, off the North Devon coast, is at a 90-year high, according to conservationists. The tiny Bristol Channel isle is “globally famed” for being home to many of Britain’s seabirds, including 25,000 Manx shearwaters and more than one thousand puffins.

🪧 Iceland’s women’s strike

Tens of thousands of women across Iceland, including the prime minister, are stopping both paid and unpaid work today in what’s likely to be the country’s largest-ever women’s strike.

What’s the story?
The “kvennafri” - or women’s day off - has been called in protest of the gender pay gap and gender-based violence. At least 25,000 people are expected to attend an event in the capital, Reykjavík, with many more taking part in other events around the country.

PM Katrín Jakobsdóttir has also confirmed her participation, telling Icelandic media: “I will not work this day, as I expect all the women [in cabinet] will do as well.”

“Fields in which women form the majority of workers, such as healthcare and education, are especially affected,” said the BBC. Women and non-binary people have also been urged not to do any unpaid domestic work on Tuesday.

Is this the first strike of its kind?
No - but it will be the first full-day women’s strike in Iceland since 1975, when 90% of women refused to work. This stoppage led to “pivotal change”, said The Guardian, “including the world’s first female elected president of a country”.

Unlike the 1975 strike, Tuesday’s event is for women and non-binary people. “We do this because [...] we are all under the influence of the patriarchy,” said one organiser.

What’s behind today’s strike?
One of the event’s organisers told The Independent that while “significant strides” have been made since 1975, “occupations traditionally associated with women are consistently undervalued and underpaid” and that “women still bear the primary responsibility for childcare, perpetuating inequality”.

Iceland is regarded as a world leader in gender equality, topping the 2023 World Economic Forum’s global gender gap rankings for the 14th consecutive year. But another organiser told The Guardian that today’s strike is looking to challenge that perception: “an equality paradise should not have a 21% wage gap and 40% of women experiencing gender-based or sexual violence in their lifetime”, they said.