Margaret Thatcher from a gender perspective

-break through the sex discrimination

It had been stuck in people’s mind that politics was only a stage for men, but never for women, especially in the conservative party. It wasn't until 1975 that the Equal Pay Act, passed in 1970, came into force. Until this time, women and men could be paid different amounts for the same work. The Sex Discrimination Act, which made it illegal to discriminate on the grounds of gender or marital status in recruitment, promotion and training, was passed in the same year.

At time when Margaret Thatcher was still on the limelight of her political career, the discrimination in western countries particularly in United Kingdom was rampant to a woman who participates in the political world where men dominantly held. This is quite true to the fact that women in most part are vulnerable to failure and personal weaknesses. But despite of all these negative accusations branded and inculcated to women in her time, Margaret Thatcher never held single hesitations to attain her ample determination to be on top of her dream.

In such a tough situation for women to participate in politics, nobody believed that a female who was supposed to take care of her family, could ever be an MP. However, Margaret Thatcher overcame all these difficulties. She believed that one’s life must matter, beyond all the cooking, cleaning and the children; one’s life must be more than that. With her determination and conviction, Thatcher eventually became the first female prime minister in Britain. As she said,” Any woman who understands the problems of running a home will be nearer to understanding the problems of running a country.”, she has made many achievements during eleven and a half years that she was serving as prime minister.

She normalized female success. She showed that although female power and masculine power may have different languages, different metaphors, different gestures, different traditions, different ways of being glamorous or nasty, they are equally strong, equally valid … No one can ever question whether women are capable of single-minded vigour, of efficient leadership, after Margaret Thatcher.

-sacrifice her joy with family

However, as a mother, Thatcher has had to make big sacrifices in her life to get where she is. She had to sacrifice her children. She entered Parliament when her twin children were only two years old. Those who know her well say that privately she has a deep and strong sense of guilt and regret about them. Politics and young children combine particularly badly in Britain, where the House of Commons sit from 3 p.m. until midnight most days, and often later.

Whether it's their mother's fault or not (she feels it is), her children have become a slightly pathetic national spectacle, which is rare in Britain where prime ministers' children have usually remained quite private and unknown. People hardly knew the names of Harold Wilson's sons. But Margaret Thatcher's children’s' careers and public image bear little relation to the kind of values she promotes, nor much resemblance to her own rigorous upbringing as a small town shopkeeper's daughter. Their public image is too public and mostly unattractive and unsuccessful. Mark made a bad start as a racing driver. He is now married to a Texas millionaire and makes his living out of business consultancies. Carol is making an embarrassing career in journalism where her name is her main asset.

Mrs Thatcher, as a woman has had to sacrifice many of the joys of a happy family to get where she is--just the way top men do. She got where she is by climbing up the men's ladder, behaving like a man, sacrificing like a man, and being ten times tougher than all the men around her. In a meeting with Lord Spicer in April 1995, she told him: 'If I had my time again, I wouldn't go into politics because of what it does to your family.'

-Thatcher’s advantages

Margaret Thatcher appears as a woman whose ideas were unshakeable but who, in reclaiming the Falklands and, before that winning the party leadership, was willing to go to surprising lengths to achieve her ends.

Being a woman did have advantages. Thatcher used her toughness to surprise her (male) colleagues, who were not sure how to react because she was a woman. On the other hand, she also used her feminine charms when she needed to. The historian Eric Evans quotes one of Thatcher’s advisors: "He believes that her 'perplexing charm' enabled her to 'be getting away with' political ploys and stratagems which a man would not."

As the first British female prime minister, Margaret Thatcher enables women to access to better jobs. Women saw her as a model. Thanks to her political achievements she proved that the fact that women could not be skilled politicians was false. In the Britain of the 1990s many women were appointed to high positions, (especially in the sphere of justice, the House of Commons and in publishing houses). Furthermore, women in the West acquired more political influence than ever in the latter part of the twentieth century. In the 1990s almost 30 percent of cabinet ministers were female in ten important European nations. Even though this proportion was still far from being equal, it was higher than ever. The development of the welfare state, better educational opportunities and new social movements such as second-wave feminism in the 1970s and 1980s helped women to work with politic and challenged the notion of female incompetence.

The positive image of her marriage and family played an important part in Thatcher’s media presentation as a successful Prime Minister. Part of the Thatcherism focused on family and personal life. She thought that: “The family is the building block of society. It is a nursery, a school, a hospital, a leisure centre, a place of refuge and a place of rest. It encompasses the whole of society. It fashions our beliefs. It is the preparation for the rest of our life. And women run it. "

Quotations:

"One of the things being in politics has taught is that men are not a reasoned or reasonable sex."

"In politics, if you want anything said, ask a man. If you want anything done, ask a woman."

Was Thatcher a feminist?

Margaret Thatcher was a feminist not for what she said but for what she did. During her time as Prime Minister, she never advocated women’s rights for the believed that it is an innate nature of every women to rise and lead even to the greatest responsibility as long as she has the sheer optimism to do so.

Compare and Contrast

-Angela Merkel

Another famous female politician, Angela Merkel, who is the first woman to be the Chancellor of Germany since 2005, is described as “the iron lady in Europe”, due to their similar impact on the conservative party which has always “belonged to the men”.

Angela Merkel was born in Hamburg, West Germany. She was initially trained as a physicist, but then entered politics after the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall. Rising to the position of Chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union party, Merkel became Germany’s first female chancellor, and one of the leading figures of the European Union, following the 2005 national elections.

Merkel has a similar background to Thatcher’s as a woman, and she dominated the European stage as no woman has done since Margaret Thatcher. However, these two could hardly differ more, either in personality or politics. In the perpetual negotiation machine that is the European Union, Merkel excels at getting her way while treating the male egos around her as gently as possible, which would never happen in Thatcher’s uncompromising politics and leadership style. Merkel does not relish humiliating her more improvident relations, but she is determined not to be the rich aunt left with the bill at the end of the meal.

Nevertheless, the presence of these two distinguished female politician, has shown to the whole world that women can absolutely do what men can do. And hopefully, more “Iron Ladies” inspired by Thatcher would be seen on the stage of politics.