To wonder if Mrs T would have been loathed less if she was a man?

[Lucyellensmum95]

I was a teenager in the Thatcher years, many of my school friends were the children of miners and they suffered serious hardship. Then there was the poll-tax, reposessions, etc etc....... So, im not saying she was great. But no worse than Tony Blair following bush blindly into iraq to look for non existent weapons of mass destruction, no worse than Cunty Cameron (who actually i dislike quite deeply because his incompetence and indecision is destroying our country), but I am sure that when he dies no one will be dancing on his grave, he will probably be long forgotten (hopefully - like a bad dream).

It doesn't matter which party is in power, there will be people who dislike them, people who like them.

I think it is wrong that Mrs T is to be given a state funeral, i thiought it was wrong that Diana got one - its a waste of tax payers money and well, a bit naff really.

Does anyone else wonder if it is because, regardless of her policies, she was a strong woman (no one can deny that) that people hold her up as such a hate figure - I think it is unfair. I didn't like her - but all this glee at her death is quite frankly, embarrasing.

All the focus for what happened in the 80's is on her. It wasn't just her - everything would have gone through cabinet or parliament and more likely both - we live in a democracy not a dictatorship. Blair and Brown aren't blamed in the same way - it's New Labour. YANBU.

WallyBantersJunkBox, interesting post. My Dad (I think) accepted Thatcher. She was "that bloody woman" to my Mum.

The buck stops with the prime minister, it's sort of the point of the job.

I was a teenager in the 1970s so I rememebr it well.

Margaret Thatcher had the guts to do things no man would ever do.

She was not bound by the inbuilt considerations men have for other men. She was not part of the cosy old boys club of Westminster.

I well remember Heath, Wilson, Callaghan. All grey men and interchangable - totally unwilling to do what was necessary.

It was because she was a woman outside the coterie of men that run politics that she could do the thinsg she dis. She is hated for what she did and she did them precisely because she was a woman who could.

She was not hated for being a woman though.

It's not possible to consider whether she'd have been loathed less if she was a man. If she'd been a man, she wouldn't have been her. She felt she had to be strong to compete with men. She felt the need to chastise the men around her for their spinelessness, she was feminine in so many ways.
She was a woman and what she was and the decisions she made were bound with her sex.