I went with my Icelandic feminist friends to a meeting on equal pay called: Alle ønsker likelønn, men er det mulig? We were quite disappointed with the meeting. Just the same as always… the first speaker made it clear that we are just talking of equal pay per hour, that is how he thinks is the only way to look at it. The gender difference in salaries in Norway is 15%, but when we even out everything, working hours, education, hair color, height, gender… maybe not gender… not sure though, then we get down to 5% (In Iceland a very clever statistic twist could get this down to 1% using this method). I wish he and his kinds would look at economic power and independence of both women and men as an important issue for the well being of the whole society. Then of course the family responsibility of women was discussed, they have the children and are far more likely to be responsible for the household. The Icelandic way of equal parental leave is by many thought to be an important way of getting men into assuming responsibilty in the home and maybe realize what they are missing by not doing it! I agree with that, but I am not sure it is an ‘hocus-pocus’ thing, like it is often talked about. The roots of the problems lie deeper that that. Stella, my friend, told the panel that when she was growing up she was told that if she worked hard all doors would be open for her, she had learned that life is not so. She asked what they suggested she should tell her daughter? She was trying to point out that the problem is not how women decide to make their choices, it is not that simple. If for example every young girl today would decide to go into engineering, banking etc, would then the gender pay-gap close soon? or… would the salaries in these fields go down? Here is a good book to get some insights to the problems we are facing, it is not as usual to have a man saying it though! En sexists bekännelser – jag visste inte att det var så illa