To understand how Iceland managed this, you have to take a look at what happened almost 50 years ago. In 1970, a radical feminist group called the Redstockings formed in response to outdated ideas in Iceland surrounding issues like violence against women, reproductive rights, and women’s labor. The Redstockings were known for their loud and public demonstrations, and in 1975 they proposed their biggest idea yet: a women’s strike, a day when women would collectively refuse to work at home and in the office to prove their economic worth to society.

The idea was divisive at first, but slowly, women from different political backgrounds got on board. To make the idea more accessible, they changed the name to “Women’s Day Off,” or “Kvennafrí,” and planned the strike from the ground up. It was a massive success. An estimated 90 percent of Icelandic women refused to work that day, and it shut down the country. Flights were canceled without flight attendants, and schools were closed without teachers. Men had to bring children to work because there was no child care at home.

The effects of Kvennafrí were felt across the country. Iceland quickly passed its first Gender Equality Act and soon after elected its first female president — the world’s first woman president to be elected democratically. In this episode of Missing Chapter, we talk with one of the women who helped plan the strike and walk through how Icelandic women shut down their country.

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For decades, airlines exclusively hired young, single, unmarried, white women and enforced strict policies — like weight and age requirements — to make sure their employees were up to the standard they were selling. Airlines relied on the glamorous reputation of the jet-setting stewardess to sell luxury air travel, and it worked. Along with imposing extreme qualifications for the job, airlines leaned into a “sexy stewardess” stereotype with advertising campaigns and new uniforms, like Southwest Airlines’ “hot pants” that painted stewardesses as sex objects.

But in the 1960s and ’70s, stewardesses mounted an organized push against their employers’ discriminatory labor practices. They became one of the first groups in the US to fight discrimination in the workplace. And they won. Their activism and legal battles, which used Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, became known as the “stewardess rebellion.” It changed the airline industry into what we know today and paved the way for working women nationwide.

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For example: The early record industry confined Black musicians to “race records” and white musicians to “hillbilly records.” Hillbilly music would have been early country and string band music. Race records restricted Black musicians to blues and jazz genres. Which meant Black musicians playing bluegrass-style banjo weren’t recorded — even if they were responsible for teaching white musicians.  

Using field recordings, their own banjo and fiddle skills, and a deconstructed version of one of their own songs, Blount explains how Black musicians have long been left out of the current canon of folklore recordings and American folk music history. Plus, what he’s doing to keep the tradition alive, with fresh observations and a musical style that looks both forward and backward.  

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