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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that Lady Thatcher was a great feminist icon

95 replies

kitty1976 · 08/04/2013 14:07

Sure some people don't like her but she was a great example of what can be achieved with determination in the very male dominated world of politics.

OP posts:
motherinferior · 08/04/2013 15:08

Name me three non-feminists who are feminist icons...

ReluctantBeing · 08/04/2013 15:10

She did what she wanted, and that makes her admirable in my eyes. I don't have to agree with what she did to admire her determination.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 08/04/2013 15:10

Mary Berr, MI, according to recent report.

Can't help you with the other two.

LRDtheFeministDragon · 08/04/2013 15:10

*Berry, even.

motherinferior · 08/04/2013 15:12

Doing What You Want is not necessarily an admirable trait. See Hitler, Pinochet, Franco...being determined is only a good thing if you are determined upon a good thing. If you are pig-headedly pursuing Wrongdoing this is not admirable.

wigglesrock · 08/04/2013 15:13

See this is what I don't get, I despise Margaret Thatcher, I don't wish her dead but I personally can't think of a single redeeming factor regarding her. I'm pushing 40 and from NI so my view may be slightly coloured, I don't get why the fact that she was a woman should give her any more respect than if she were a man.

She held some contemptible views regardless of her gender .

tethersend · 08/04/2013 15:14

Irrespective of whether you agree(d) with her policies or not, it is testament to the dire state of play WRT women's position in politics that Margaret Thatcher is hailed as a feminist icon by virtue of having a vagina.

She is held up as a feminist icon because she is the only female Prime Minister we have ever had. That in itself is a disgrace.

Fargo86 · 08/04/2013 15:15

If she was a feminist, she wouldn't have become PM.

SuffolkNWhat · 08/04/2013 15:19

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

WaitingForMe · 08/04/2013 15:38

You can be a feminist and a Tory!

I think she did a lot of good stuff and is unfairly vilified in many ways but I wouldn't call her a feminist icon. IMO she paved the way for just one woman - herself.

slug · 08/04/2013 15:52

"Being a powerful woman does not make you a feminist."

True. But being a powerful women shows young girls that it is possible for them to be powerful too. Whatever you feel about Thatcher (and I'm foreign and didn't live here through the Thatcher years so I don't feel I can comment) she did provide a powerful role model for ambitious young women.

AmberLeaf · 08/04/2013 16:21

Slug. Im british and grew up under Thatcher.

She was no role model for me.

Darkesteyes · 08/04/2013 16:28

Im nearly 40 and i remember her minion Peter Lilley (under her leadership and bidding) making a very mysogynistic speech about single mothers only just stopping short of saying they should have kept their legs closed.
It was vile vile vile. She was NO feminist.

Aliensstolemychildren · 08/04/2013 16:31

I'm British,I grew up under Thatcher, and whilst I may not have agreed with some of what came out of her mouth - she is the part of the reason I 'expect' the same opportunities being there for me, rather than being 'grateful' for the ones that are.

treas · 08/04/2013 16:33

Well she did manage to achieve what she did without getting her breasts out - a few 'Female Icons' in the Music business could take note about that.

Respect het for that if nothing else

Ullena · 08/04/2013 16:36

I hope she rests in peace. I liked and admired her greatly, and alzheimers is a horrible illness.

thewitchisdead · 08/04/2013 16:39

"...she ain't no sister. She likes what macho, sexist, patriarchal men have always liked: war, the defence of the status quo, established power, entrenched inequality, heavily rigged individualist competition and absolute freedom. Not freedom as in emancipation, but the greedy savagery of an unregulated market in which man eats man and woman is neither seen nor heard."

Margaret Thatcher: a feminist icon? The best Thatcher-related joke I've heard all day.

MissAnnersley · 08/04/2013 16:41

I disagree strongly OP.

SauvignonBlanche · 08/04/2013 16:46

YABVU, OP and somewhat deluded.

flatpackhamster · 08/04/2013 16:50

Given the way modern feminism has become little more than far-left class war with the enemy being 'patriarchy' instead of 'aristocracy', I'm not surprised she wanted nothing to do with it.

She did what true feminists wouldn't - prove her superiority to the men around her by being better than them at everything they did. Truly inspiring, in a way that no Affirmative Action Programme could ever be.

Scrazy · 08/04/2013 16:52

YABU, Iirc the CSA was after her time but I'm sure she wouldn't have stopped it and was involved in the planning. It cost the country more to administer than it collected of 'feckless fathers', tried to stigmatise a generation of children living with single parents (mainly mothers), damaged families and probably scared said 'feckless fathers' of having anything to do with their children.

WilsonFrickett · 08/04/2013 16:58

So is feminism about being superior to men then flatpack?

Waspie · 08/04/2013 16:59

YABVU. She is the antithesis of a feminist. She set the movement back by about 20 years. During the height of the unemployment crisis she told women not to work in order to leave jobs for men Shock

Having said that she is one reason why I became such a staunch feminist, and have a hatred of discrimination and bullying in any form: I wanted to be the polar opposite of her.

motherinferior · 08/04/2013 17:02

Yes. The one and only good thing about Thatcher Always Sticking By Her 'Principles' was that you knew what to oppose.

Mumcentreplus · 08/04/2013 17:17

Sorry NO...