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?

Has she got a scooter? A balance bike? Lots of DC learn to ride a bicycle without stabilisers really young because they have scooted and balance-biked so much.

She has a scooter which she is only now starting to get into. To be honest she took a dislike to her scooter and bike and we let them drift but its time to get her back in the saddle so to speak. The trampoline sounds fun, I will certainly pop by with her this Friday.

snapsnap I think the most important hting you can do is model good behaviours in yourself and make sure your DC's attention is drawn to them.

Let them see you learning something new, failing at it, tyring again. Show them what a robust, flexible, optimistic person you are.
Let them see you reading lots of books. Tell them what they're about.
They will soon begin to copy you

High expectations

I see what you're saying Bonsoir and wordfactory, but so many of those opportunities are denied to so many people.

I am a very involved parent and work very hard with my DC. At reception level both mine are reading reasonably fluently, were able to ride a bike without stabilisers at age 3, pick up after themselves in the house, have good manners and can be (usually) relied on to eat out with excellent behaviour, etc. I've worked hard on all those things. I think I role model well - I work a full-time job and also carry out a demanding voluntary role that I hope will lead to a paid position in the not-too-distant future.

But things like sports clubs, MFLs etc - all those things that really would give my DC a significant advantage - are denied me because I cannot afford it (ironically because I am spending all my money on professional childcare ). And I can't afford it. None of this crap about priorities please. When it's a start choice between paying for gym club or eating, it's not a question of priorities.

One of the reasons I am doing voluntary work is because although I am qualified to post graduate level, my qualifications don't really count for much outside that field and it's not a field I can ever square with being a lone parent with no family support. I cannot afford to retrain either (hence the voluntary role). So I'm simply doing my best with what I have, on limited sleep and with limited funds. Hopefully, things will pay off, but there's no guarantee of that and many people out there can testify to the failure of best laid plans.

Are we really saying that it's ok for the children of poorer or less 'able' parents to fall through the net? Personally I'd rather pay more taxes and have things like MFLs provided for all at state level. It would be far fairer IMO.

sunshineandbooks - rest assured, if you want your DC to learn to speak MFL to any useful level, you will need to pay for it one way or another. The surest way of succeeding is by taking a job in Paris/Rome/Berlin/Shanghai/Buenos Aires.

Sorry for that little rant

To come back to the OP - I think yes, Thatcher gets more vitriol aimed at her because she is a woman, but I also think it would be only slightly less if she were a man. I think the biggest factor was her force of will, which was quite remarkeable.

I dislike her enormously and think her policies have done a lot of harm. I see her largely responsible for the culture we now have in which we all know the cost of everything and the value of nothing. But despite all that, I also admire her in a strange way.

More to do with her evil personality than gender imo.

Perhaps so, but what about all the other things we've mentioned - sports activities, musical instruments, etc. Not to mention the fact that without money or contacts, many educational experiences that can do a lot to broaden horizons are denied to many children. With limited funding for schools, trips are being stopped, music funding stops after a term, and after-school sports clubs often require considerable parental contribution.

So many children's futures heavily dependent on what their parents earn. Not their own natural abilities, or the level of parental interest and love. Just money.

The Coalition accepts that the single most influential factor over a child's future success is parental income. But they are doing little about it because, like most governments of all colours, they know that increasing taxes is political suicide. You get what you pay for ultimately I suppose. I just think it's a sad reflection of society.

It is a sad fact that education requires skilled adults and money to deliver. Some skills are much more expensive to impart/acquire than others. If you haven't got a lot of money with which to offer your DCs a wide range of skills, you could do a lot worse than focus your efforts on maths. Maths is very cheap to deliver, it is easy to access extra help and it is required to a high level of skill for all the degrees that lead to £££ careers.

sunshine I would never patronise anyone by saying that money is of no consequence. I have been poor and I have been rich. The later makes life very very much easier.

However, there are still loads of things you can do for your DC, and I'm sure you already do many of them.

I'm always a bit taken aback when people describe her as 'evil' TBH.

That is the sort of word that I have doubts would be used against a male Thatcher equivalent.

It seems a very loaded and emotional term (nothing personal perceptioreality - you aren't the only person to have used that word about her).

I'm also taken aback when people talk about dancing on her grave when she dies and all that sort of thing. OK her policies did untold damage, but I doubt she went ahead with them in a malevolent way (which is what evil implies). She just thought she was right.

Hitler was evil. Not Margaret Thatcher.

Did any of you see Nigel Lawson on the Daily Politics today? He said that he had wanted to introduce a transferable tax allowance, but that "Margaret wouldn't allow it, because she regarded women who stayed at home with children as having not much gumption"....

Beachcomber - I agree about the 'Thatcher was evil' stuff. I'm not 100% sure it's completely attributable to her gender, as a noodle around popular left-wing publications (the Guardian springs to mind) suggests that attributing malicious or evil intent to right-wingers - who arguably just have a different value system - is a common thread in left-wing discourse and is by no means just directed at Thatcher.

But I do think the vehemence of the 'malicious, evil' type accusations that get directed at Thatcher are coloured by the fact that she is female. According to the same logic of structural oppression and solidarity her gender means she should by rights be in the 'oppressed victim' camp, and consequently behave in a way coloured by her assumed victimisation and characterised by solidarity with her own and other oppressed groups. The fact that she rejected the whole paradigm in favour of hard-nosed individualism does, I think, trigger rage in a lot of people who are very invested in the idea of the helplessness of oppressed groups, that then comes out in the sheer pitch of venom that gets directed at her.

My dad would point at the TV and ask 'Who's she, Albert?' and I would point at Thatcher and say, 'She's a fascist daddy,'

I am not pitching my venom, though. I just loathe her policies and their effects.

Which means I didn't invest any 'But you're a woman!' sentiment into my non-appreciation of her premiership, not from day 1. So she didn't let me down as a woman; she let me down as a human.

Sorry, I think she was evil, you may disagree. I also think you can judge a person by the company they keep. Pinochet??

I wonder what first attracted Thatcher the accomplished dictator Pinochet?

I was an adult for some of it.

And people compared the Thatcher era picking up from the previous decade to what id going on now. If they really think the comaplints now are about generic cts theya re deluded; the complaints are that the current government like Thatcher are targetting the most vulnerable and lying about that when questioned.
like this

I don;t have a problem with cuts, theya re needed, but it an be done better. I;d lose £7.50 per child off my Tax Credits far more happily than £25 just for the one getting MR DLA. After all I chose to have a largish family; I did not choose the disability. Cuts should be equal not targeted at the most vulnerable. The £7.50 cut would leave me more out of pocket but morally would be far more fair.

Why did some people hope for her to be a "woman to be proud of"? Why be dissapointed in her, What did you expect?

She had the Conservative beliefs, the ideology, the lack of empathy, the sneering way about her that all most Conservatives have.

The belief that people should look after themselves and their families with as little as possible help from the state. (And provide just enough financial help and public services to stop people feeling the need to get politically educated and do something about inequality. Conservative polititians explained this when they justified helping poorer countries with money - when they said it's not just compassionate reasons, but to stop them getting angry and waging wars or terrorism.)

The Conservative ideology that if you're poor it's because you don't try hard enough.

The myth that anyone can succeed in life if they just try.

The belief that disabled people should be grateful for any crumbs they are thrown. (And that's just the ones they consider "deservingly" disabled.)

The myth that we have equality of opportunity with regards to class and gender.

That myth based on, it's not as bad as it was before so what are you complaining about and stop making excuses, and "you think you've got it hard! that's nothing, what about me?"

The myth that some people manage to get educated, be dynamic and get a comfortable life, so anyone can if they just try.

So no, it's not because she is a woman. I never expected anything else from her due to her political beliefs and attitudes which made her a Conservative. Just like I don't expect anything else from Cameron and the Conservatives in power, because they are Conservative.

It's about the political party in power, not the personality of a particular man or woman. That's why voting for a personality is such a mistake. Or even voting according to which person seems to win an argument. (Though obviously making a convincing argument is a skill polititians (sp?)need).

Better to look at the ideology of the political party, and vote for the set of beliefs (which lead to the policies) that you believe in and want to see put into practice.

(I know I'm not especially articulate and hope people see what I'm saying, even if someone else could have put it better. I don't mean to sound blunt or aggressive and I hope it doesn't come accross like that.)

(I still hate her though, and Cameron, and Ken Clarke, and that Anne Widdecomb gets on my nerves, even though she's not actually an MP any more (I don't think) and lots of other Conservatives, but especially Clegg and the lib dems. At least the Conservatives are sticking to their beliefs, at least Thatcher was sticking to her beliefs, not power hungry in quite the same way as Clegg and the like.

But I try not to hate them because it's a waste of energy.)