Margaret Thatcher - Feminist Icon?

I was a teen and young adult in the 80's and grew up vehemently opposed to Maggie's policies. I marched against many of the things the conservatives did at this time and still feel that they did irreparable damage to our society and we will be dealing with the fallout for many years to come.

She did nothing for women in politics ( in fact she never promoted any female to her cabinet in the entire time she was prime minister, although I am sure there were several suitable candidates) Having said all that she worked her way to the top of a male world, starting out with everyone against her and despite every obstacle imaginable worked her way to the top.Speaking as some one who works in this kind of environment - that takes balls (even when you don't have a pair of your own) I wish she had done more to advance women in the workplace but she was always adamant that she didn't see this as her role.

However, you don't have to like someone or even respect them to appreciate the hard work they put into acheiving their success and I do acknowledge she was personally successful.

There is a feminist issue here, I think.

We have had some godAWFUL prime ministers. Some have really done shitty things. We have all been screwed by many of them, in one way or another.

Yet none are remembered with such hatred as her. If she had been a man, would this have been true? Loathed on a personal level? Name me another prime minister who is hated as a person by so many. Yet they have all done their share of truly shitty things. Do we even remember them as we do hers?

I lived through the strike. My dad stuck it out till the end. We really suffered under that government. I have never and will never vote Tory. I think her government did some terrible things and we're still suffering now because of them. But I do believe that she would not be as hated on a personal level as she is if she was a man.

I have no evidence to support this theory none at all. My gut just says it's so.

I remember the benefit gig for the miners' strike in Newcastle - Department S, the Poison Girls and a colliery brass band.

Thatcher's destruction of the mining communities was ... spiteful.

I don't use that word about her because she is female. Cameron is spiteful, too.

well put GeorgeT btw

power-crazy control freak - yes.
feminist?
no.
not the same thing at all :)

grumblin I'm sorry if you think I am patronising, belittling and simplistic by suggesting people on this thread hate her because she was a woman, though actually what I indicated was that it was the level of visceral hatred, not hatred per se.

This country has been damaged just as much by the Brown/Blair duo with their warmongering, economic ineptitude, and collusion with the bankers - but I repeat - they do not seem to attract the same level of vitriol as Thatcher.

I stand by my view that she attracted extra opprobrium because she did not turn out to fit the stereotype of woman as caring, sharing and compassionate but was someone who saw what had to be done and got on and did it.

But then I admit I may be biased as someone whose own business was nearly bankrupted in the 70s by knock on effects of irresponsible union action and a pathetic Government who hadn't got the backbone to deal with the situation.

Cogito, the banks had carte blanche after deregulation to look the other way and insure themselves against the losses created by offering all these loans so that they didn't suffer. On the contrary so long as the loans were taken up their big obcene bonuses rolled in....leaving the mess we are all paying for now!!!
This is the legacy left by Maggie and Ron! Disgusting behaviour.

Feminist Icon, you have to be joking. she adopted a masculine style, didn't do women's issues. Yes she was a grocer's daughter but she benefitted from her husband's wealth and while some good was done, her legacy was atrocious. no society.... Even David Cameron has reneged on that. if someone compared me to Thatcher I would be appalled but that may say more about me than her.

I think there is confusion about femininity, being a woman and being a feminist. The first is a social construct. The sex a biological classification and the third a term used to describe those who subscribe to a particular ideology about the advancement of women and equality for women.

You can be either or both of the first two and not be the third just as one can be a man and male and a feminist. MT did not agree with or support the ideology. Ergo she was not a feminist.

Does that help explain further how I believe she was not a feminist OhdearNigel?

"Cogito She deregulated the banks!!!!! since when is our country in such a good way?"

The Blair/Brown government were quite happy to use the money generated by the deregulated financial sector to finance their lavish spending plans of the last 15 years. We all benefited, now we all pay. If anything is to blame, it's not deregulation per se it's the collective mismanagement and misunderstanding of what unfettered deregulation meant in practice. I have a feeling that even those allegedly running the banks - rather as Barings Bank and Societe Generale discovered separately - didn't understand how dicey their practices were until it was too late.

ppeatfruit - YES! that is a FACT, conveniently overlooked at the moment! Pfff, feminist icon, my fat arse!!! She was all for the boys, so busy brown nosing Ronald Reagan and the banks and between them they have created the situation we are in now by allowing the deregulation of the banking industry!!!

My dislike of her is not because she's a woman but rather because she had not s humanitarian bone in her body, she had a disgusting, bigoted attitude and was basically, a fascist.

Margaret Thatcher was an individualist and interested in advancing the aims and ambitions of Margaret Thatcher, not women

Why is this anti-feminist ? How many high profile men go around working for the good of "men in general" ? Men are allowed to be individualists without it being perceived as a character flaw.

I think she is one of the great feminist icons. She was not defined by her "femininity" and is judged in exactly the same way a male Prime Minister was. Whatever you think of her policies and how it affected you, she brought no female agenda to that table. Saying that she was no feminist because she did not concentrate on "wimmin's issues" is surely one of the most antifemininist ideas possible

Yes, but what does car use or snobbery have to do with feminism? Or do women have to be sainted, unimpeachable human beings in every possible way before we will deign to call them icons?

Another important point that is being ignored is her terrible snobbishness she looked down on people who travel by bus thus giving carte blanche to the lovers of congestion and car owners who reckon they rule the roost.

Cogito She deregulated the banks!!!!! since when is our country in such a good way? Great for bloated rich companies who avoid tax and the bankers yes!!

I don't think the highly nationalised companies were much cop but I certainly don't think the privatisation and semi- privatisation esp. of the N.H.S. that has gone on is any better.

ahtyed? hated even

There's a sexist stereotype that says women should be more 'caring' than men. By that measure, Thatcher wasn't just a ruthless, determined conviction politician, she was 'unnatural'. I think that lies behind a lot of the Thatcher hatred: the fact that she didn't bother playing 'nicey nicey' in an appealing feminine way.

Whether or not you like her policies, the fact that she steamrollered right over sexist stereotypes like that makes her admirable from a feminist perspective in my view.

The Conservative Party in Scotland have never recovered from her legacy. She used Scotland as a guineau pig for the Community Charge (Poll Tax) by introducing it here a year earlier than England and Wales, simply because she could. At the moment there is 1 Tory MP here - and that is 1 too many. She is hated in Scotland because of her policies and what she did, and I agree with grumbling and find it patronising that anyone could believe she is ahtyed just because shes a woman.

"Anyone care to fill me in on a few salient points?"

'Thatcherism', as it was later coined, was all about a small state. It demanded personal responsibility over state dependence, private industry/services rather than state-owned industry/services, companies run by management rather than unions, industries deregulated rather than monopolised, wider home-ownership and share ownership, lower personal taxation, a smaller public sector and an all-abiding belief that, if government steps back from every aspect of life 'the market' will step in fill the gaps. It's, by definition, a 'winners and losers' agenda which creates inequalities. Hence why opinion is so polarised.

It was a complete turnaround from the 'big state' ethos that governed in the 1970's and which turned out to be badly equipped to adapt to the challenges presented by a global oil crisis, high inflation and the advances in technology that were leaving us behind. So much of what we took for granted was built on sand and the economy by 1979 was in such poor shape that, rather like many European countries are experiencing today, we'd been largely written off & spending our way out of the problem was not possible.

I'm truly aghast and saddened at the comments, directed in a disparaging way, about her illness and about being "buried alive".

Seriously? Dear me...

I certainly would have disliked her policies if she had been a man for these reasons;
a. she mindlessly created more class hatred than ever in our society.(she is quoted as wanting to put the working class back in their place)

b.. SHE DEREGULATED THE BANKS THUS CREATING THE MESS WE ARE IN NOW (A FACT CONVENIENTLY IGNORED ATM)

c. Closed down our home grown industries and opened the way for them and any other industry\service to be globally run

d. Did nothing for the environment at all.

On the often repeated accusation of destroying the working classes or communities. I think that depended on location. If, as I was, your town was overly dependent on an industry producing products available elsewhere in the world much cheaper, and if all that was artifically preventing that industry from going bust was vast amounts of public cash, when the cash ran out (which it did spectacularly in the late 1970's) the writing was on the wall, whoever was in charge. As investor Warren Buffet puts it...."when the tide goes out, you can see who's been swimming naked". The mines, the shipyards, the car plants, the steel mills etc. were 'swimming naked'. The mistake made in hindsight was to trust recovery to market forces and not intervene enough to replace the dying industries with new ones.

Mrs Thatcher didn't believe in "society" so is unlikely to want to be labelled "Feminist Icon". Whatever you want to call her I believe she is a worthy Hero(ine). She rose to the top from a modest background.

She insisted on "business as usual" after the Brighton bombing - if you look at the footage of her the following day her composure and strength of character is mind blowing - can't imagine any of the current lot of politicians in any party being so strong.

She didn't hesitate when it came to supporting the residents of The Falklands.

She didn't ask for favours or concessions due to her sex, and was honest with her expenses to the point of wanting to use her own surplus domestic crockery at Downing Street.

She extolled the virtues of standing on your own two feet and not expcting hand-outs.

She was extremely detrermined!

She is not your typical MNetter feminist, no, but I think she is one of the top feminist icons ever. Without banging on about it, she taught women (and the masses in general) to just get on with it.

Her politics may be questionable but she had a mind and wasn't afraid to use it and get other people to use theirs.