International Women's Day in Reykjavik

March 8 is International Women's Day, and we celebrated by going to two different events here in Reykjavik.  First, we went to the offices of Stígamót, the counseling center for survivors of sexual abuse and sexual violence.  They were hosting an open house to release their annual report, which you can access on their website. It's in Icelandic, but the tables tell you something even if you don't read Icelandic. Here is the cover of this year's report:

In case you don't recognize them, this is the current Prime Minister of Iceland, Jóhanna Sigurðurdóttir, and her cabinet.  She is the one in red, at the head of the table, of course. The PM and her cabinet graciously agreed (as described by the Stígamót staff) to pose with "gender glasses" for this photo to indicate their support of the work done by Stígamót.  The glasses have a pink lens and a blue lens.


In good Icelandic fashion, the open house featured waffles and hot chocolate, tours of the facilities, conversation, and some knitting was accomplished during the event. We particularly enjoyed the photos from Stígamót's history, and posters from their awareness campaigns and informational events. 


The second event that we attended was in celebration of UN Women, the newly reorganized agency for women's and gender issues at the UN.  This was an event in downtown Reykjavik to unveil a poster that is part of a project sponsored by the UN Women's organization in Iceland by the artist Kitty Von-Sometime called The Weird Girls Project.  We were a little late so we missed the speech but were there for the celebrating, and the balloons.  Here are a few photos of the poster and the event:

The little one especially like the orange balloons.


Below you can see the poster, the large one with the yellow background.


One thing that I have noticed is how much the arts and the use of creative expression (e.g. gender glasses) are part of feminist events here.  There are many artists who are feminists, of course, but the incorporation of the arts seems (to the outsider at least) to be quite seamless; it is not "political art" but rather art as part of the process of feminist work.  It certainly adds an element of fun and of creativity to doing the sometimes difficult work of gender equality, in all of its forms.