Mrs Thatcher: Her 'Iron Lady' image displays her as having more guts for a desperate political gamble than any wimpy man

rgaret Thatcher - such a feminism, they still had a gut fear of familiar, seemingly perm- what a woman in power might mean - anent figure on the politic- as expressed in the slogan 'Ditch the Thatcher al landscape. So hard to Bitch'. Labour Party stalwarts recall nowa just what an extensive appeared baffled when asked to stop shock-wave her rise to power first reproducing the phrase: could it be that caused: she appeared to come 'from socialist women weren't that opposed Uses Her nowhere' and, most devastatingly, she to Thatcher after all? was a woman. The Tories were abashed Since the late 70s, men on the Left at what they had done - knocked out have cleaned up their anti-Thatcher their first democratically-elected up- act. Today's more astute response Woman's start, 'Grocer Heath', only to replace combines total opposition to Thatcher- him with 'the grocer's daughter'. But ite politics with an awed admiration for the reverberations were muted by Tory Thatcher herself as an authoritative good form and the familiar closing of 'conviction' politician. As the best- Touch ranks, diffused by displays of gallantry known anti-sexist politician, Ken or camp delight that the new Leaderene Livingstone, says, 'I have a lot of The prime minister's would mock any Labourist aspirations respect for her. She believes in things qualities as housewife, towards equal opportunities. and she has fought for them.' Much of the Left, however, felt no The new respect for Thatcher's lead- refined lady and warrior such inhibitions about its misogyny, ership is an undeniable advance on, and was immediately on the lookout for say, Denis Healey's continued lumber- queen have been critical scapegoats to blame for Thatcher's ing innuendo about her intimacy with to the success of sudden accession. For otherwise 'prog- world leaders. But by concentrating ressive' men, it appeared as yet another exclusively on her politics, it actually , argues instance of a Pandora's Box opened too denies the extent to which Thatcherism Ros Brunt hastily by the women's liberation relies on what Thatcher represents as a movement. Woman-hating combined woman. I want to argue two apparently with woman-blaming as the supreme contradictory things: that Thatcher's 'irony' of Thatcher was repeatedly and politics have absolutely nothing to do ponderously explained to socialist with women, women's politics or the feminists. 'See what you've done now! feminist movement, but that they have Look where all this can lead!' The everything to do with Thatcher being a triumph of Thatcherism represented woman in politics. the threat of a feminism gone com- pletely out of (men's) control. While In the first place, because some versions leftist men got the point that Thatcher of the Pandora's Box theme are still herself was hardly the apogee of current, implying that the content and

22 MARXISM TODAY JUNE 1987 style of Thatcherism represent what religion, appeals to petit-bourgeois anx- political memory to recall just what a the world would look like if ever ieties and women's fears about male risky strategy it appeared to be in 1979 women, or Women's Libbers, 'took violence and takes up issues like and the extent of the forces ranged over', it is worth stressing just how pornography, football hooliganism, and against it in Thatcher's first cabinet. much Thatcher as politician is the the restoration of capital punishment. Because of the subsequent distance creation of particular men and how the Then there is a more flamboyant type between Heath and Thatcher, it is now politics of Thatcherism are bounded by of Tory woman who shares a similar forgotten that Thatcherism was once patriarchal values. perspective on 'women as the reposi- Heath's project too, but it ran aground hatcher's political career has tories and guardians of moral values' amid U-turns and the three-day week. been entirely constructed by while explicitly despising any narrow- Thatcher thought that Heath's original men, both ideologically and minded 'provincialism', delights in the policy of free enterprise hammered out materially. The biography be- company of men and enjoys conspi- at Selsdon Park was right. His mistake 'She set out Tgins with the baseline philosophy and cuous consumption. But the latter was simply lack of the guts needed to to make it in fatherly encouragement of Alderman woman also recognises that there's a fight it out at all costs. He had stopped a man's . It includes the crucial- price to pay for pleasure and privilege being Selsdon Man, but 'I was still ly advantageous marriage to Denis and so combines a flair for narcissistic Selsdon Woman', she said in 19751. world and Thatcher, which, since 1951, has pro- publicity with aristocratic and enlight- But when the chance came to put was never vided emotional support, the ideologic- ened Christian beliefs about dedication Selsdon Woman into operation, she had interested in al cover for normal wifedom and to the service of often unpopular ranged against her a heavy battery of even natural motherhood, and the where- causes. This is a tradition of progres- conventional political wisdom and the withal to buy freedom from childcare sive Toryism, well exemplified by the Heathite alliance which, quite simply, negotiating with nanny help and boarding school. novelist Barbara Cartland's campaigns feared that to go down that road again, the terms of The marriage also subsidised the legal for improved maternity grants and with its inevitable social divisiveness patriarchy' career that contributed to Thatcher's midwifery services and permanent and mass unemployment, would be successful entry into Parliament in sites for travellers, which lost her a electoral harikiri. How could the Tory 1959 and oiled the political wheels council seat; and by her daughter party ever offer itself again as the thereafter - as she says, 'it is expensive Raine's attacks on public hygiene embodiment of the nation united? to be in politics, one has to be so mobile, standards as the renta-quote Lady From this position, Margaret Thatch- one has to be well-groomed, and one has of the 1950s and later, as er not only managed to 'carry off to entertain'. Then there is the bid for Countess of Dartmouth, supporter of Thatcherism, but also to see off all the Tory leadership under the patron- the Covent Garden community battle subsequent challenges in a way that age of Edward du Cann and Keith against the property speculators and made her 'invincible', and, despite Joseph, masterminded by Airey Neave, other GLC Tories. every indication to the contrary, still the most experienced conspirator of Most women Tory politicians present the Defender of One Britain, indeed the the Right. And there is the prime some amalgam of these two campaign- personification of Britannia. Her way ministerial image-building by Gordon ing models. Thatcher owes nothing to of doing it, I think, is deeply implicated Reece, subsequently knighted for his either, although her voting record and in the politics of gender. services to hairstyles, fashion and her support for so-called Victorian For a start, the collapse of internal voice modulation. The whole process values align her closer to the Jill Tory opposition to Thatcherism was acknowledges no womanly influence, Knight position. But in so far as both also about 'impotence', a failure of the no maternal advice, no girls' get- these positions relate to a recognisable familiar strategies of smoothy upper- together - or certainly not as Thatcher 'women's polities', they form no refer- class masculinity when confronted herself tells it. ence point for Thatcherism. As a with a lone woman operator needing to There is also a studious avoidance of politician, Thatcher has never made establish her cabinet authority. The the 'pitfalls' of any identification with any claim to 'represent' women or popular term Tory 'wet' sums up the 'women's issues'. Thatcher's back- speak in any way on their behalf. Nor way Thatcher managed to convey to the ground in the male-dominated areas of indeed has she ever done anything for public that opposition to her was both industrial chemistry and tax law gave women, apart from make the majority politically and sexually inept. These her the political dispensation to special- much more hard up. All her 12 years at men could not even stand up to a ise in Treasury-type areas while in the top only serve to confirm what woman. 'Are they one of us?' is the first opposition and be 'spokesman' on mat- Spare Rib said in a 1975 editorial: question Thatcher asks of any political ters like 'energy' and 'housing' before is not a sister. challenger. According to her own gen- becoming responsible for education. Furthermore she is not even a sister dered terminology, the wets are not This political trajectory indicates the 'under the skin' in the way socialist 'us', simply because she could brand extent to which Thatcher has always feminists have more recently argued them all as 'old women'. In turn, she been the 'loner', the extraordinary and that, in particular circumstances, we became known to her colleagues as 'the unique woman operating in a man's might regard those other types of Tory best man in the cabinet', and masculine world. Such isolation from other woman politician. Nor can she be attributes were grafted on to her women is of course still a structural regarded as the outcome of the femin- femininity in ways that made her 'given' for most 'top women', but it has ist movement. She set out to make it in doubly superior. The soviet epithet been accentuated by Thatcher's per- a man's world and was never interested 'Iron Lady', and her own slogan, 'The sonal choice. It has also been streng- in even negotiating the terms of Lady's Not For Turning', displayed her thened by the way she has deliberately patriarchy. as a woman with more guts for a rejected any identification with ex- t the same time, every- desperate political gamble than any isting models of the Tory woman thing about her politics is wimpy man. politician. related to gender, is in- Misogyny apart, the 'best man in the separable from images of cabinet' tag also ignores the likelihood There are two types of women who have Afemininity existing in competition and that if the prime minister had been a traditionally 'made it' in Tory politics conflict with versions of masculinity. man, Thatcherism might well not have and who, unlike Thatcher, have usually Indeed, Thatcher's success in the realm triumphed. For the 'wets' literally attempted at least to address women's of patriarchal politics is precisely to do spoke a different language from issues - particularly if they've had a with her effectiveness as a woman and Thatcher. Theirs were the conventions grounding in local politics, which she the way she inhabits particular femi- of irony, nuance and understatement, managed to avoid. First, there is the nine roles while appearing to disavow the famous 'coded' remarks of those tradition best exemplified by the long- femininity. accustomed to rule without raising serving Birmingham MP, Jill Knight, Now that Thatcherism looks so their voices. By contrast, Thatcher was which draws on reactionary populist powerful, it requires some effort of confrontationally direct, monolithically

23 MARXISM TODAY JUNE 1987 straight-talking. The wets were simply Thatcher: she makes it perfectly plain opportunity and I doubt if Tebbit would outmanoeuvred by the sort of woman and obvious and what she has to say is make it. Their problem is that they give they had no experience of 'handling' based in identifiable everyday experi- the game away in every sense. In their and knew they could not hit. ence. Pre-eminently it is the language mouths and through their personas, the If Tory gallantry and the continued of 'making the best of yourself and self-same politics that Thatcher blessing of a divided opposition com- 'making do'. It belongs to the realm of espouses is much more clearly re- bined to disperse the challenges to the housewife, of putting the best face vealed for the savage class warfare it Thatcherite policy, what has sustained on it, of perfect grooming, smart but really is. I would suggest that the the success of Thatcherism has un- practical, of care with the household effectiveness of Thatcher's femininity doubtedly been its identification with budget. is the degree to which it serves as cover Thatcher's own persona as a woman . It he famous Thatcher compari- for what would otherwise be transpa- has been crucial for her politics that sons of domestic and national 'If the prime rent Heathism, or its ultimate exten- she could draw on family 'cover' to economies are, at an analytic- minister had sion, 'naked Tebbitry', where the full compensate for the near-disaster of her al level, clearly ridiculous and been a man, extent of the present government's earlier incarnation as 'milk snatcher'. Tunreal when most households run on devastating sleaziness and mean- She has never entirely overcome the extended credit and unpaid bills. But at Thatcherism minded corruption would be amply previous impression of 'unnatural another level, what she says is so might well displayed. Is it only the fact of the woman, depriver of innocent children'; obvious it almost appears to go without not have prime minister being a woman with the and the caring-and-nurturing aspect of saying. For it appeals to the most triumphed' overdetermined attributes of ordinary wife and mother has never been that atavistic commonsense: 'My policies housewife, refined lady and warrior- convincing to the electorate despite are based not on some economic theory queen, that prevents that point being maternal anxiety over Mark. The suc- but on the things I and millions like me crystal clear in the election? cess of her family status owes more to were brought up with. An honest day's The one positive aspect of Thatcher's the public image of Denis Thatcher. pay; live within your means; put by a femininity is that she has made politic- His persona has made it a recognisable nest egg for a rainy day; pay your bills al leadership by women thinkable. And sort of marriage where the wife is on time; support the police.' The very at least she hasn't 'blown it' for women. clearly The Boss; but she can't be all banality of Thatcher's sayings formu- On the contrary, she has coped ex- bad if such a transparently easy-going lates some kind of basic aspiration for tremely effectively with the demands and decent old cove as her husband the nation: if only we could all 'return' of the job; indeed, she has positively continues to support her. to a world that was that simple, that radiated a self-confident ability to To this extent it hasn't even mattered unified. perform well. At the same time, the that Thatcher's femininity isn't parti- Thatcher's rhetoric is that of the political strategy she represents is so cularly likable, nor that she has lost out housewife who is also Britannia. It unacceptable in its social and economic in both the family and good breeding speaks for a political strategy which a consequences, that it literally 'takes a stakes to the Queen. The point is that new class of Tory men has devised but woman' to front it successfully. • the sort of woman she speaks as is which it has taken one Tory woman to instantly familiar and understandable. implement successfully. Heath didn't 1. 'For a very readable summary of this period, see You know where you are with Margaret bring it off, Joseph passed up the John Cole's The Thatcher Years, BBC Books, 1987.

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