Do you think part of the vitril/hate aimed at Thatcher is because she is a woman?

[lesley33]

Okay Margaret Thatcher enacted a lot of policies that made a lot of people very angry and she certainly didn't set out to do anything to promote the rights of women.

But I am struck about the amount of vitriol that is still aimed at her all these years later. There have been male politicians - Norman Tebbitt springs to mind - who have been responsible for similar policies and have been hated at the time, but I never read about people still hating these politicians many years later.

I'm not sure if this is just because Thatcher was PM or is it because she is a woman and by behaving the way she did, she stepped well outside traditionally permitted female behaviour?

What do you think about this?

sportsfanatic, that's an interesting analysis, and spoken with the authority of experience too. But I'm sure others will come on here and tell you why you're wrong

No. And I remember pre-Thatcher times too. I imagine she and her cohorts are in ecstasy over David Cameron's plans for the NHS and benefit changes.

A large part of where we are now is a result of her government's policies.

The last Labour government reeked of incompetence and poor implementation of (some) decent policies - e.g. increased spending on the NHS and education.

The Thatcher government reeked of spite, violence, free-market exploitation and a 'fuck the North' mentality. And she was not middle-class. Her dad was a greengrocer. She came from working-class roots, and displayed zero empathy with those from a similar background. I can understand where Geoffrey Howe, Norman St John Stevas and the like were coming from, even if I don't like their views. The likes of Tebbit and Thatcher were just appalling human beings.

So no, misogyny never played a part in my hatred of the woman and all she stood for.

Good god no. It's not because she's a woman. It's because she sold off british industry, hated the poor, did nothing to help women, decimated communities especially in the north, promoted greed etc etc etc. Her ovaries were not the issue

Thank you catgirl, feel exactly the same way, and I'm starting to feel the same way about the current lot even though I started out hopeful that coalition politics might temper the effect of the right to left and back again craziness - and let's face it, there aren't that many women in the current government.

I think an element of the vitriol is because she is a woman.

Of course more of it is about the policies, but I suspect that if they had been implemented by a man, there would have been more effort made to rationalize them in a 'somebody had to do the job' sort of way.

And I say that as a left wing Scot.

How many of you on here were actually adults when she was dictator in power?

Maggie Thatcher milk snatcher
She privatised the transport system, sold most of our water companies to the French, sold off council houses. And as for the coal mining industry need I say more? They wouldn't even show the film about her in Barnsley because the cinema owner wanted to publicly boycott it.

It is nothing to do with her sex, just her vile policies.

But they weren't just her polices were they - they were a whole bunch of other people in the cabinet. People tend to talk about the previous misery under the Labour governments as being Labour's fault.

Everything that happened under the following Tory government is about Thatcher.

Don't get me wrong - I disagreed vehemently at the time and I still disagree vehemently today. Like I say, I'm a Scot, what was done to Scotland under that government still carries on its legacy today - just as it does in much of England.

Perhaps I'm wrong - it just seems to me that women are judged more harshly than men and I would be surprised if Thatcher were an exception.

I don't think a man would have been able to carry through the policies the way she did. A lot of it was through sheer force of her personality. I can't think of a male prime minister who had that force of will apart from Churchill perhaps.

I wasn't even born, bunbaker

I was an adult for most of it... To my shame, I had no idea of the real damage the policies were doing at the time.

"I wasn't even born, bunbaker"

I was 20 when she was elected to power. When they deregulated the buses the traffic on the roads increased manyfold times. When British Rail was denationalised the service went to pot. There aren't enough council houses for those who need them and the miners strike in 1984 was just horrendous (I live in Yorkshire)

I live in Yorkshire now - I lived in London then. I can see how their policies have destroyed communities here. And how this government will do the same.

Be interesting to know how many of you were adults in the 1970s that led directly to Thatcher being elected......

You mean who voted for her? Or could have done?

No. Nothing to do with her being a woman. Many reasons as above.
Chickens .... I have heard insults about David Cameron, but the male based ones!

My anger towards her is grounded in disappointment I think, that the first female Prime minister was her. So in that way it is connected to gender.

But mostly that she pursued such shortsighted policies in this country; that we are all still paying for.

Sorry LineRunner - was that addressed to me?

I just meant how many were adults i.e. not children, so over, say, 18 and had direct personal experience of the 70s (as opposed to reading or hearing about it or just vague childhood memories).

No. Not at all.

It is because of her policies and the damage she wreaked on the country that we are still reeling from.

sportsfan, yes, that was to you! About who would have been adults etc.

I guess you could also ask, who actually remembers her affecting ther lives, because that would be teenagers as well.

I was an adult and no, I did not vote for her.

I was disappointed that as the first woman prime minister she didn't abolish VAT on women's sanitary products.

I think her policies were and are the reason for the hatred against her.

No, it's nothing to do with her gender. I hate Tebbitt, Howe, Lawson et al just as much as I hate her.

Also as Nyac says, she did act on behalf of men, her policies were not 'female-friendly', for want of a better term. She did little to nothing to help women, in fact, quite the opposite she actually made the lives of women a lot more difficult. And then told them it was good for them.

I was just interested to know whether the visceral hatred she attracted was mostly from those who directly experienced and suffered from the conditions of the 1970s that led up to her election or is more from those who have formed their opinion from reading or hearing about her. That's all.

"Do you think part of the vitril/hate aimed at Thatcher is because she is a woman?"

I suppose part of it might be, obviously. And I suppose part of the worship aimed at her might be because she is a woman as well.

Is there any conclusion to be drawn?