Thatcher: Individualism, Not Feminism

Daphne and I are from up North. Which automatically means that we will most likely not like Thatcher very much. At our high school we had one particular teacher who despised Thatcher, because he had been a miner during the cuts, and had to become a maths teacher, so you feel for him really. But he was a moody twat.

Yes a woman becoming Prime Minister was a huge step forward for feminism, but her policies did not align with most feminist ideology. She said she owed nothing to women's lib and was against childcare for the purpose of allowing mothers to work. The opinion held by some is that she was a pioneer, to quote U.S. President Barack Obama: 'She stands as an example to our daughters that there is no glass ceiling that can’t be shattered'.

But she broke the glass ceiling by proving women can be just as awful leaders as men. In 11 years, Thatcher promoted only one woman to her cabinet, preferring instead to elevate men whom Spitting Image memorably and, in certain instances, accurately, described as "vegetables". It has been said that although she 'broke the glass ceiling,' she pulled the ladder up with her. She was not supportive of women, when Edwina Currie approached Thatcher in 1988 to get approval for the world's first national breast-screening program she tried to appeal to the PM initially "as a woman" but that swiftly proved unsuccessful. So instead: "I put it to her that we would be saving money." That did the trick. Just because she was a woman doesn't mean that she is the beacon of women  in politics, instead, she taught us that there is such thing as 'individualism', she supported herself as a individual, not women nation-wide. As Hadley Freeman comments: 'Women aren't always good for other women because the gender of a person matters a lot less than that person's actual beliefs. I am reminded of this every time the debate comes up about whether more female bylines would reduce sexism in the media. Yet the Daily Mail has more female bylines than any other UK paper and is not exactly a totem of gender equality and female-friendliness.' Similarly, The Sun runs a feature with Katie Price, that doesn't mean that because they have a whole two pages dedicated to KP's thoughts, that they respect the opinions of women.

Don't forget she called Nelson Mandela a "terrorist" because she supported the South African apartheid (The Guardian). Thatcher was only great as an example against the argument that if the world were run by women it would be full of puppies and hugs and FEELINGS. People should not care that she was a woman or the first female prime minister. She was simply a prime minister who  happened to be a woman.

I wholeheartedly agree with all of this. Can I just add that my mother spent a good twenty minutes ranting yesterday about how she hated Thatcher but she could not for the life in her remember why, she just knew it was a deep seated hatred, and this appeared to bother her throughout the day. A LOT. 

Good Points: She was part of the team that developed soft-serve ice cream: http://www.mrwhippyicecream.co.uk/the-history-of......

Want more? Russel Brand has written a great article