By LIZ ALDERMAN

REYKJAVIK, Iceland — On a chilly afternoon in October, Frida Ros Valdimarsdottir, a former home-care worker turned women’s rights advocate, left her office at exactly 2:38 p.m. and headed to Reykjavik’s main square, where throngs of women were forming a boisterous crowd. It was the time — roughly two and a half hours before the end of the workday — that many protesters reckoned they stopped being paid for equal work.

The rally was part of a groundswell for income equality that galvanized tens of thousands of women across this tiny island nation, where protests often produce change.

“For decades, we’ve said we’re going to fix this,” said Ms. Valdimarsdottir, the chairwoman of the Icelandic Women’s Rights Association and an organizer of the demonstration. ”But women are still getting lower pay, and that’s insane.”

Image: Anna Kristin Kristjansdottir is an owner of the White House ad agency, where she is aiming to achieve gender parity in upper management. Bara Kristinsdottir for The New York Times