Nevertheless, women still earn about 14% less than men,[5] though these statistics do not take into account the hours worked, over-time, and choices of employment.

[10] It also has the world's first female and openly gay head of government, Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, who was elected prime minister in 2009.

In 2020 Iceland had a 12.2% gap, as measured across four categories: health, education, economic participation and opportunity, and political advancement.

[18] Other notable early Icelanders include the explorer Gudrid Thorbjarnardóttir, the poet Steinunn Refsdóttir, and Thorgerd Egilsdottir wife of Olaf the Peacock.

[19] During the Viking Age, Norse women worked in farming and commerce alongside men, and were often left in charge while their husbands were away or had been killed.

[21] Textiles were used as a form of currency in medieval Iceland, and there were regulations as to what was legal tender in the oldest (11th-century) part of the Grágás laws.

[27] If a woman's husband died, she would take his place on a permanent basis; in this way, women were often running farms or trading businesses.

[28] The Icelandic Sagas make reference to women acting as nurses and midwives, and attending to the wounds of men injured in battle.

[36] On Friday, October 24, women left their formal and informal work at 14:05 (2:05 pm), the time at which they would have earned their day's wage had they been paid at the same average rate as men.

[38] Vigdís says she would not have become president without the strike which she said was the "first step for women's emancipation in Iceland", which "completely paralysed the country and opened the eyes of many men".

[7] The strike was repeated; in 1975, 2005, 2010, and 2016 women in Iceland walked out in accordance to the time of day that they would stop being paid if their wage was the same as men.

[41][42] Thora Melsted opened the first school for girls in the 1850s, and after a public debate concerning women's right to higher education, the Kvennaskólinn í Reykjavík was founded in 1871; women were given the right to attend university in 1886, and the first Icelandic woman to graduate was Camilla Torfason in Copenhagen in 1889 and Elínborg Jacobsen in Iceland in 1897.

[50] Research found that this put men and women on a more equal footing in the workplace, but did not seem to affect the pay gap.

[9] For the past eight years "Iceland has finished first of more than a hundred countries in the World Economic Forum’s annual Global Gender Gap ranking, which quantifies disparities between men and women in health, politics, education, and employment (the higher a country’s ranking, the smaller its gender disparities).

"[52] In Iceland women are paid about 18% less than their male counterparts, if working in the same job with the same level of experience; for comparison, the average European wage gap is 16.2%.

[12] Excluding ranking, position, and hours worked, the average annual income for women is 28% less than men.

[57] In 2018, Iceland made unequal pay for equal work illegal; companies and government agencies with over 25 employees face heavy fines.

[61] Compared to the United States which sits at twenty percent,[60] Iceland was said to have the "most equal parliament" in the world when women won 48% of the seats in 2016.

[66] During her time as president she used her position to focus on youth and to support forestry, while promoting Icelandic language and culture.

[66] After her retirement as president in 1996, Vigdis went on to become "founding chair of the Council of Women World Leaders at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University".

[63] Two years later, in 1998, she was appointed president of the Unesco World Commission on the Ethics of Scientific Knowledge and Technology.

[63] In 2003 Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir was elected as the first female Prime Minister of Iceland as well as the world's first openly lesbian head of government.

She held that position for 16 years and used her leadership to attempt to ban strip clubs "explaining it as a necessary measure to bring about justice, which is impossible, as she concluded, when women are treated like commodities".

On June 27, 2010, Iceland declared same-sex marriage legal, and Jóhanna and her partner Jónína Leósdóttir were officially married.

[68] Katrín Jakobsdóttir, a member of the left-leaning Left-Green Movement, became Iceland's second female prime minister.

[58] One of her actions as prime minister was to organise a new law which requires Icelandic companies to demonstrate that they pay men and women equally.

[73] Women's football clubs in Iceland include Breiðablik, Grindavík, Haukar, Íþróttabandalag Vestmannaeyja, Knattspyrnufélag Reykjavíkur, Stjarnan, and Valur.