'Women Power and Politics Now' Blog

I have just finished watching 'The Iron Lady' in which Meryl Streep masterfully depicts the life of Margaret Thatcher. After yesterday's discussions about women in today's working world, amidst many other topics, I can't even imagine what it was like to run for power at the time she did. I thought I'd just share some thoughts about our only female Prime Minister.

When Margaret Thatcher died of Heart failure on the 26th June 2013, I was in a hotel room in Puerto Pollenca, enjoying the sun and Champagne that comes with such a resort. My social media flooded with crass jokes and general happiness at the passing. I avoided comment as I didn't feel I had the right to make a judgement. After all, it wasn't me that had even lived through her reign as PM. But I think in the light of these plays, I can now voice my opinion.

Growing up in a mining town in the North, my grandparents and in fact my dad, were all victims of the picket line strikes, and eventually the closure of the pits by Mrs. Thatcher. Naturally, there is a great bitterness, and indeed hatred, for this woman in this part of the country. After her recent passing, my neighbouring town, Goldthorpe-Upon-Dearne, paraded an effigy of Thatcher on Horse Drawn Carriage through the streets, before burning it behind the rows of abundant terrace council houses.

To my horror, I watched videos on the internet of the doll queue regulars heading up the parade. I would say any excuse for a day off work, if they in fact had a job to go to at midday in the middle of the week. It was more than awkward when my mum proceeded to point out her old school friends amongst the crowds. Miles and miles of these people gathered, chanted, and rejoiced in her death. They shouted how Thatcher was a coward, which couldn't have been more wrong in my opinion. Whatever her policies on industry, this woman led from the front, marched this country through a war, and from start to finish did it with great criticism and the patronising grins from cabinet colleagues. This shameful charade of a protest was actually quite embarrassing for a Northerner to witness, and unfortunately made as much sense as the estate agent who praises a property on the advantages of its vertical space, because who needs a dining table when you can have a rock climbing wall? But like a cuckolded lover seeking forgiveness, or a dog returning to its own vomit, I will someday put my faith in the spirit of the Northern community once again. A spirt Thatcher sought make no secrets about seeking to destroy.

Only at the end of the trail did we catch a glimpse of those she actually effected by her policies. The miners, in their wheelchairs, peacefully mourned through the streets, knowing the injustice they felt would probably never die, but it was far beyond them to change it now. They actually looked quite sad, and I thought maybe they weren't actually thankfully for the hordes of drunken louts that had turned out to fight on their behalf, because really they weren't there to fight on their behalf at all. The truth was quite other and all together more terrifying, they had turned out to glorify the death of an old lady, who they probably knew very little about save for the odd rumour passed down through the generations. Perhaps if they had spared a thought for the fact that there grandparents and parents were still alive because they hadn't been forced to work in the atrocious conditions of the mining world anymore, or that the whole trade union system was as corrupt as they accused parliament of being at the time, it might have been different. I guess it is too late for such hindsight.

I do have to agree with the head speaker of the House of Commons when he was quoted as saying, "Under Thatcher, everyone knew the price of everything, and the value of nothing". Furthermore, her seemingly barbaric policies were of that nature that seemed to ignore those in an industrial world that she had little contact with. However, can you even imagine what it must have been like to run for leader of the Conservative Party, then Prime Minister, and spend eleven and half years being treated as an inferior human because of your gender? As a male, I can't relate to this. This iron front she put up can only have been the result of necessity, in a world where women were not taken seriously. One view is that Thatcher did more for meritocracy than anyone before her, including Pankhurst's rebellious suffrage movement which no doubt paved the way for her rise to power. And even she had to make compromises to make the men listen. She took voice lessons at the National Theatre to lower her pitch, after being told "the lady doth screech too much" by the opposing party, in front of the entire House of Commons. Nothing said of the proposals she suggested, just how she delivered it. She wore high heels, make up, power suits, an excess of jewellery all to strike a balance between being taken seriously and retaining what little femininity she was allowed to have. She was patronised from start to finish, and forced to be stern to get people to listen. She was then heralded an ego maniac because if this persona she had had to adopt. Eventually her party betrayed her, claiming the reason she had been voted out was that she didn't listen. I wonder how many of the men in her government listened, and how many will have effigy's burnt of them when they pass?

But is that feminism (cautious of opening a can of worms with that question)? The Spice Girls championed her as such. Changing everything about herself to be accepted? One could argue that Thatcher was an icon of individualism, not feminism. An anomaly. She "broke the glass ceiling for other women" said Barack Obama in a comment on her death. But with only 22% of the House made of women in 2010, i'd argue she only broke the ceiling in the sense that the shards compromised the floor for the women beneath her. I think this is why I felt an apathy and indifference for her passing, when it first happened at least, because Thatcher deliberately engendered the notion that there is no such thing as society and that we are alone in life. On that reading there is little wonder Obama praised her, as it seems to be the American Dream we are talking about here. As an actor, one who works as part of a company, and as a Northerner where community still exists much stronger than it does in London, I cannot buy into this idea. And going into this process as a company, and as human, there is no excuse for such apathy on my part.

I'm lacking in the skill to articulate what effect Thatcher had on Britain, and i'm lacking in life experience to know what effect she had on me as an individual, but it certainly doesn't surprise me that parties were held on the eve of her passing to celebrate her death. She stood for survival of the fittest, a phrase used by Darwin himself a mere twice in 'The Origin of Species', compared to the countless uses of the words love and cooperation. I do know, from what I have read, that her refusal to stand against apartheid, her civil war against the unions, her aggression towards our neighbours in Ireland and a taxation system that was devised in the dark ages, the bombing of a retreating ship – is just not British, and its just not something I can align myself with.

However, just as Elvis died when he joined the army, not when he had a dodgy reaction to an Aspirin on the John, (John Lennon), Thatcher "the monster" didn't die on the 26th June 2013 from Heart failure, perhaps Thatcher died as she sobbed self-pitying tears as she was driven, defeated, from Downing Street, ousted by her own party.

Then all that was left old lady, a mother, who as Brand recounts, had to water roses under police supervision in the winter of her life. She will be missed by a handful of people; her family, those she was nice to, the rich who got richer under her stewardship, and perhaps those who knew her better than Britain did. If you behave as if there is no society, then in the end there isn't. Perhaps the anger shown toward the state funeral business was as a result of the hypocrisy we felt; showing remorse, pain and regret when her government had sought to annihilate such notions. It was taught that suffering is deserved, and pain a weakness. So how can we be angry at those that rejoice in her death, those who burn effigy's of her body, from who were they meant to espouse compassion from when they were growing up?

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