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With her portrait. Pic: The Telegraph |
She came closest
to being monarchy, so it is only apt that they promise her a funeral no less
than Lady Diana’s. Britons are terribly
excited about her last rites, and many seem to convey that it is to make sure she
is finally buried.
Her death at 87
should have been a regular and, one may say, redundant R.I.P. Instead, there
has been a fusillade of anger, impossible to temper with the accolades.
She was quite rightly
loathed for the things she did. However, given the lapse of time and the fact
that the British government continues to be one of the nations that supports
war and uses its Hague privilege for not entirely ethical reasons, has her
death become a reason for regurgitation of liberal angst?
Morrisey, the former
Smiths singer, was among the first to get
started:
"Every move
she made was charged by negativity; she destroyed the British manufacturing
industry, she hated the miners, she hated the arts, she hated the Irish Freedom
Fighters and allowed them to die, she hated the English poor and did nothing at
all to help them, she hated Greenpeace and environmental protectionists, she
was the only European political leader who opposed a ban on the Ivory Trade,
she had no wit and no warmth and even her own Cabinet booted her out…When the
young Argentinian boys aboard The Belgrano had suffered a most appalling and
unjust death, Thatcher gave the thumbs up sign for the British press. Iron? No.
Barbaric? Yes.”
Had it been
somebody else, perhaps even Di, people might have questioned Morrisey’s
misogyny. He got lucky simply because
Maggie Thatcher liked being the only man in the cabinet. What is considered a shocking statement is
being replayed in a loop. She had said, infamously, “The feminists hate me,
don’t they? And I don’t blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison.”
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The Queen and the queen. Pic: Mirror |
Somewhere, the
ire over issues has got mixed up with a matter of class. The Grocer’s Daughter sounds like the title
of a 19th century novel about a queen of suburbia; she cannot afford
to be the Iron Lady, much less be conferred with the title of Baroness by a reigning
monarch who did not even like her and who she appeared to have despised in
equal measure. If she is anti-feminism,
then the queen is equally culpable.
Morrisey reveals
his own chinks when he says:
"She hated
feminists even though it was largely due to the progression of the women's
movement that the British people allowed themselves to accept that a Prime
Minister could actually be female. But because of Thatcher, there will never
again be another woman in power in British politics, and rather than opening
that particular door for other women, she closed it.”
This is a
problem not just about Britain, but in societies across the globe, varied
cultures notwithstanding. While the role of the feminist movement is hugely
important in making women understand their potential and seek out opportunities
to realise them, it is a delusion to believe that all women benefit equally. They
do not, and the struggles continue. It is disingenuous to imagine that only
because of one dictatorial woman’s policies, British society will not accept
another woman at the helm. It does not speak too well about such a society if
women have to open doors (kind of mimicking chivalry) for other women rather
than this being civilisational evolution. Are male leaders who have displayed a
propensity for the very things that Ms. Thatcher did expected to help the cause
of their gender?
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Iron Lady or war monger? Pic: Mirror |
Why treat the
professional public sphere as a harem? Why don’t male leaders bring about this
change in attitude and leave the space open for women as their right and not something
they are granting them? Feminism is,
ideally, not about sops, although one agrees that certain laws need to ensure
that women are not victimised by a largely patriarchal mindset. When French
President, the late FranƧois Mitterrand described Thatcher’s features as the "eyes
of Caligula and the mouth of Marilyn Monroe", he was performing a typical
masculine ritual – of using a compliment as a weapon. Monroe, at least in the
public imagination, stood for little more than sex appeal; Caligula’s warrior
status is the stuff of legend. Had he stuck to the latter piece, it might have
reduced him in some way.
This is echoed
in Morrisey, when he states:
“Thatcher is
remembered as The Iron Lady only because she possessed completely negative
traits such as persistent stubbornness and a determined refusal to listen to
others.”
How many male
leaders listen to others? Why is this expected of women? Why does the moniker ‘Iron
lady’ convey negative traits in women and the same iron looks good on a man on
a mission with stubborn determination?
It is rather
disconcerting that there wasn’t, and isn’t, much analysis of how Margaret
Thatcher, despite all her flaws, was given the sexist treatment. Feminists are,
therefore, doing precisely what men have done, which is why despite my own
stand against her policies – in as much as I am aware of them and can
comprehend their impact – I find myself asking these questions.
A few days ago
U.S. President Barack Obama was accused of being sexist because he said that Kamala
Harris is the “best looking Attorney General we have ever had”. It was after listing her other qualities, and
many saw it as reducing her stature. It was probably unnecessary, but at times
we do tend to become too self-conscious. And, curiously, we believe such public
expressions are not ‘gentlemanly’, which is really a posh version of machismo.
I’d pay more
attention to what Obama said in his tribute to Thatcher: “She stands as an
example to our daughters that there is no glass ceiling that can’t be
shattered.” This statement sounds so last summer. Must the glass ceiling example
still prevail in public discourse and that too for a future generation?
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More than a caricature. The Guardian |
In 2010, Margaret
Thatcher was declared the most important role model and influential woman in
the world in a survey by YouGov and AOL UK; it had a limited sample of 2000
respondents.
How do we
measure influence? Can influence in one field cross all barriers? Does
political influence translate into social influence? Does social influence
coalesce seamlessly into psychological influence?
Is being a role
model gender-specific? If it is so, then would the influence of men in the same
field be measured differently? Would Thatcher’s male counterparts be considered
more influential or less, and on what grounds? Since there was a clear gender orientation
to the survey, she was in competition with other women. Her closest competitor
was Florence Nightingale! Who would think about a nurse going around with a lantern
to heal wounded soldiers as a contemporary inspiration? Or was she a reminder of wars and therefore
fresh again in memory?
The most
revealing part of the survey was the question: who would they swap their lives
with? Thatcher who won the top position was not someone they would want to be. Isn’t
that what role models are about? Most women said they would like to exchange
places with J.K.Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series.
Does it figure
then that a woman who is not worthy of emulation and has not inspired or
encouraged or had a deep impact is the one people want to be? Or possibly
Thatcher had too much baggage for anyone to carry.
On April 17, if she does indeed get a funeral
similar to the paparazzi princess, it is safe to assume that many might see
this as the last nail in the coffin, an insult she deserved.
(c) Farzana Versey