Margaret Thatcher - Feminist Icon?

[OnlyANinja]

The Guardian asks a number of influential women (apparently) but I'd rather ask MNers.

Agree with thunder that she was a female icon. I also thought she enabled women to be in charge of their own finances i.e. allowed us to have mortgages/own bank accounts etc without having to have a male signatory. I may be off with my timing though, I was only 8 when she came into power.

But I don't think she was a feminist icon. She didn't have an agenda for women, she just wanted to show she could be as ruthless and agressive as the men. (well I am sure that wasn't all she wanted to achieve but you know what I mean).

There is so much visceral hatred against Thatcher on this thread. I wonder if those who hate her so much would have hated her to the same degree if she had been a man. Truthfully?

And if you do hate her more because she was a woman are you not falling into the trap of double standards - something feminists condemn utterly when it comes to other issues such as sexual behaviour (for example)?

To be fair, she never campaigned on a feminist platform, just a conservative one. She was ruthless and self-serving in the way successful male politicians are ruthless and self-serving. Ironically, the thing that was truly revolutionary about her in Tory terms, and which they had most trouble dealing with by all accounts, was that she was 'common' . Grammar school educated and a chemist by training rather than being from the usual old boys' club. So the washing up stunt may be about as anti-feminist as you can get but her trump card was that she could claim - more than public school educated Labour leader Michael Foot - to be ordinary. Her ideology was also strong on personal independence and I think, even though that's not specifically feminist, women value that quality having had it denied for so long.

I hate her for destroying the working classes, doing away with social housing and generally being a grade A tosspot.

Think people hate her because she was a memorable figure, sports. Most influential PM in our lifetimes, I'd say.

I agree sportsfanatic. Yes she certainly wasn't my cup of tea politically but she has attracted more vitriol than any male PM, many of whom have fucked up royally. Blair took us to war for now, nearly a decade on a lie ffs.

HandDived. That predated Thatcher - mid 70s.

'That said, I would be delighted to pay for a state funeral for Thatcher - just so long as she is buried alive'

Brilliant. I might get this quote put on a Tshirt.

She isnt an icon never mind a feminist one , she was a terrible horrible woman who destroyed this country and seemed to have adistaste for scotland , and the thought of her being put on film as some sort of martyr makes me feel a bit ill ,

Thought it might be as I wrote it, sports!

I agree HandDived. Blair doesn't get the same amount of hate despite being a self-serving, lying toad, City sycophant, who did the square root of zero to help Labour's supposed natural supporters i.e. ordinary working people and those with less. Brown doesn't attract the same amount of hate despite raiding our pensions, spending money we don't have and selling off our gold at the bottom of the market to release cash to win votes over improving the NHS.

And you have to wonder why it's Thatcher that gets all the vitriol. It's 'cos she's a woman innit?

This is a question I haven't thought about since 1989. But I went to see the film at the weekend so it brought it to mind again.

I think a feminist is someone who consciously sets out to help improve women's lives in big or small ways.

So in that sense Margaret Thatcher not one. (Although I didn't know about the example re prostitutes and Yorkshire Ripper investigation someone mentions).

However like another poster on the thread I was about 10 when she came to power. If you were an ambitious lower middle class teenager like me I think she certainly represented something to aspire to in the 'woman in a top job' sense.

On the various 'Thatcher the wrecker' views on the thread: I was interested that the film (which I hated BTW) made her fallings-out with the rest of the Cabinet more about her authoritarian personal style (as opposed to consensus-decision making that had driven previous Govts), rather than about differences of opinion re politics (although the two are related).

And on the film: although I'm not a Tory I hated the film for quite a lot of reasons, not least the dementia angle which I thought was a pretty cheap way of dealing with the Thatcher legacy. Dementia aside, you could have made that film about any head of state or political leader anywhere in the world at the end of their life, IMO. How about a 'regrets, I've had a few' 80s trilogy - next up Arthur Scargill, then General Galtieri for a grand finale.

So, feminist icon, no. A kind of inspiration for some (whether or not they liked her policies), yes. Film, 1 out of 5 (maybe bumping it up to a 2 for good performances from the Carol Thatcher actress and Jim Broadbent as Dennis).

Did anyone whose seen the film really like it (or is that another thread)?

I really don't know anything about her beyond who she was. Anyone care to fill me in on a few salient points?

Oh yes and I also agree with everyone who says she attracts more than her share of vitriol for being a woman.

sports 'There is so much visceral hatred against Thatcher on this thread. I wonder if those who hate her so much would have hated her to the same degree if she had been a man. Truthfully? '

Truthfully? Yes. I hate all ruthless, self serving autocrats who pull apart working, fair systems in order to pursue their own ideology, regardless of their gender. I hate Cameron et al for picking apart and quashing child poverty action schemes and the Every Child Matters agenda. Not because he's male but because of his actions.

People judge leaders on what they do for/to their country. It is belittling, patronising and simplistic to suggest people on this thread hate her because she is a woman.

I don't regard her as a feminist icon, because she didn't stand for feminism at all.

I am glad to have grown up in an era where a female PM was the norm - Mrs Baldwin, yes good to see a woman in the top job...just a shame she was so shit.

I liked some of the comments on that article... 'was she really made of iron? we ask an iron monger'.

Also 'it's been classified PG - unsuitable for miners'

back to the original question...I don't think she is an icon, she did alot of damage and there are still consequences of that now. Her attitude and contempt towards margins of our society bred a very greedy, ruthless and selfish minority that have basically led us to the situation we are in now.

I think the difference in this country before and after her time as PM is massive, much more obvious than the difference made by Blair or Brown. Yes, we all have more money, but it has cost us so much.

we have lost of 'society' and as smaller communites we try and create what has been lost but essentially we are just an island filled with materialism, competition, hatred, resentment and fear. In the last few weeks over the christmas and new year period so many people have either been killed or killed themselves, we have massive debt and racism issues and our youth don't know which way to turn for the best..........Im ashamed of this countyr at the moment

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.

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!

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.

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.

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...

"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.

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.