THATCHERS NON-EXISTENT LEGACY TO WOMEN

It comes as no surprise that the actions portrayed by Margaret Thatcher during her time as prime minister still affect the way in which we live our lives today. In many ways we are still living in Thatcher’s Britain. Margaret Thatcher rose to power during an age of political polarisation and economic crisis, much like the country we remain to live within today. By defeating it’s opponents both within the United Kingdom and abroad, Thatcher’s government helped to kickstart the neoliberal era. And we are still suffering the consequences of this today.

In recent years, Thatcher has been referred to as a ‘feminist icon’, a statement which holds a world of controversy within itself. One of Thatcher’s most famous and memorable quotes about women is “the feminists hate me, don’t they? And I do not blame them. For I hate feminism, it is poison”. Margaret Thatcher was not, and remains to not be a feminist. Her blatant hatred towards women shines through both her parliamentary work statements and acts such as section 28. Historical facts relating to her tenure as prime minister convey much about her misgivings. Thatcher ignored fundamental issues of childcare and equal pay. She did not necessarily push women into public life, nor did she help women into politics. In fact, she did not help other women, nor did she openly acknowledge her debt to feminism to have any point. Through the eyes of Thatcher, women could only rise to the top if they were deemed good enough. ‘There should be no discrimination’ said she, and certainly no women were ‘good enough’ to join Thatcher’s cabinet, barring one- Baroness Young. Elsewhere, her cabinet consisted of only men, many of whom were arguably unmemorable and very quickly vanished from within the public eye. Are we really to believe that there were no women of merit? There were many women of ambition with goals, however, falling victim to their circumstances.

If we pay tribute to her as our first female prime minister, in light of what has been discussed, there is little that we can really praise her for. She demonstrated that women could reach the top of government, however she did not create a path easy enough for other women to follow in her footsteps. Whilst claiming that she owed nothing to feminism, we can assume that through her eyes she is forgetting that if it was not for the feminists of the early 1900s, her vote would not be counted, let alone holding a seat in parliament. Considering the history of female emancipation encompassing Britain, it remains a shame that our first female prime minister could and did not pave the way for fairer, more equal political representation.

Thirty-one years later, the ratio of men to women in the political scene in Britain still remains disproportionate. There are 220 women holding seats as MP's within the house of commons, and at 34% this is an all-time high. Progress is being made, whilst the number of women in parliament grows, we continue to prove Thatcher wrong.