Zoe Williams asks - Did Thatcher improve women's lives without meaning to?
Absolutely bang on the nail article.
About five years ago I was at a friend's house, along with about half a dozen other guests. Andrew and I, both broadly aligned with the Campaign Group, were the most right wing. I think two of the others were paid-up members of the SWP.
Conversation got onto the subject of Thatch, as it does, and we had this amazing male-female split. One of the Trot women commented that, growing up in the Eighties, much as one detested and condemned Thatcher's politics, nevertheless, she was an icon and role model.
Some of the men spoke of class betrayal. Some of the women, myself included, suggested that gender transcends class (my favourite way of baiting SWP-ers, who do not recognise gender politics and are probably the most patriarchal political party - well, except for UKIP).
All these women born in the second half of the Sixties knew that having Thatch as PM was a signal that women can do anything. The men came up with the litaniy of betrayals. We said we knew. We were not endorsing her policies. We never had done. But in the 1980s, it was no longer good enough for careers teachers (pah! I spit on your ignorance) to say "But women can't do that job" because hordes of teenagers would reply "If Margaret Thatcher can become Prime Minister..."
You youngsters probably never experienced that. The sad thing is that careers guidance, in many cases, is given by teachers who have gone from school to University to school and have less than no idea about life in any other environment.
Zoe Williams' last line is the clincher.
