Feminist Stories

What IF women took a day off?

On October 25th 1975, 90% of Icelandic women took the day off to protest gender wage gaps and unfair employment practices.

The strike paralyzed the country. Factories and schools were also closed, newspapers didn't get printed and you could hear children behind the radio speakers. Children had invaded workplaces where fathers at loss tried to entertain them with sweets and pencils.

Five years after, Vigdis Finnbogadottir became one of the first women to be the head of state in a democratic country. Iceland then championed gender equality through a series of reforms, ultimately becoming one of the most progressive countries on this issue.

What IF bikinis were not mandatory?

In 2021, the Norwegian beach handball team was condemned to pay a 1,500 euro fine for wearing shorts instead of the mandatory bikini bottoms "with a close fit and cut on an upward angle toward the top of the leg" during the Euro tournament.

Meanwhile, men were not forced to wear speedos.

What IF women didn't have to be naked to get into the Met Museum?

In their 1989 poster, the group of artist-activists known as the Guerrilla Girls highlighted a stark fact: a negligible number of artworks by women are displayed in museums, while nude paintings predominantly represent female bodies.

Thirty years later, the situation has hardly improved. In most major museums, works by women artists comprise only 10 percent of the exhibited pieces. This figure drops to 1 percent in the collection of the British National Gallery.

What IF women could have a beer?

1979 was the year women were finally allowed to enter Quebec taverns.

A 1937 law had prohibited women from most bars under the pressure of moral and temperance organizations.

What IF men and women were born equal and free in rights?

That's what Olympe de Gouges (1748-1793) proposed in her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen, written in 1791 during the French Revolution.

She denounced the exclusion of women from the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Men and of the Citizen.

This pioneer of feminism also fought for abolishing slavery and the right to divorce. She was condemned to death by the revolutionary tribunal in 1793.

What IF women could vote?

270 metres (890 ft). That's how long the women's suffrage petition, presented in front of the New Zealand parliament was in 1893.

32,000 women, almost a quarter of the female population, signed to request the right to vote, which they obtained that same year. This historic achievement made New Zealand the first country in the world to grant women the right to vote.

What IF we knew the women who made history?

Born in Tunis to a modest Jewish family, Gisele Halimi protested gender norms her entire life. She began her legal career defending independence activists and denouncing the French army's torture of Algerian people.

Along with Simone de Beauvoir and through highly publicized trials, she later played a key role in legalizing abortion in 1975 and in redefining rape as a crime rather than as a misdemeanor (1980).

What IF the clitoris was not a "failure" of a male genital formation?

There were no comprehensive studies of the clitoris until 1998, when Australian urologist Helen O'Connell published her research. At the time, this organ was still described in some medical textbooks as a "failure" of the male genital formation.

Although the visible part of the clitoris is roughly 0.5 to 1cm, its total length extends up to 10cm. It boasts three to four times more sensitive nerves than the penis.

This knowledge is not only useful for sexual matters but also crucial in preventing potential damages during surgical procedures.