It is a fact universally acknowledged that former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was not a feminist. A small sampling from the available evidence:
"The feminists hate me, don't they? And I don't blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison."
Well, okay then.
In the days that have passed since Thatcher’s death, people from every corner of the universe have come out to offer any and all opinions they have of her life and conservative politics. Many of those opinions amount to pure hatred (see: literally everything on Twitter), and to support that hatred, some of her more memorable quotes have been dusted off.
A common criticism of Thatcher is that there’s plenty that she didn't do for women, and this is, on the surface, absolutely true. She famously declared that she did not owe anything to women’s liberation, and she stayed silent on many topics that were of vital importance to the movement in the 70s and 80s.
Unsurprisingly, though, she faced the same prejudices that women in leadership positions frequently encounter. French presidents Francois Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac referred to her, respectively, as “Marilyn Monroe” and a “housewife.” An article in the Daily Beast references a 1957 BBC memo that said that Thatcher was “very pretty and dresses most attractively.” (The same article links to an April 8, 2013 piece entitled “The Language of Margaret Thatcher’s Handbags.” Really, Daily Beast?)
Thatcher, like other women in power, also had no choice but to address other people’s “concerns” that her home life would suffer for her career. In her memoirs she described applying to be a parliamentary candidate in the 1950s, when the selection committee for the candidacy asked her exactly that.
In a perfect world where Thatcher is a modern-day feminist, she would have told those men to take a hike off the London Bridge, but not before instituting a mother-friendly workplace with fair maternity leave and childcare.
But here’s the confusing part: she wrote, “I felt that Selection Committees had every right to ask me these questions,” but at the same time, she was hurt by the questions. “They were, after all, an attack on me not just as a candidate but as a wife and mother,” she wrote. “But I refused to be put off by them.”
Thatcher’s attitude toward gender relations was, more or less, every man for himself. In Thatcher’s world, the government did not need to help the underrepresented. It’s a fact that men and women do not start from the same baseline in our society, but Thatcher didn’t believe it, which was the basic reason why she “wasn’t a feminist.”-
So what do we do with that information? One of Great Britain’s most powerful women in history actively did not want to help other women. Thatcher didn't want to challenge the system -- she just wanted to be a part of it, and was, for decades.
By virtue of that fact, I believe it’s possible to call Thatcher’s life a feminist one. Thatcher as an individual? Decidedly not a feminist. Thatcher’s life and accomplishments, though, most certainly reflected feminist beliefs in equality and female capability (even if you don’t agree with her politics). Thatcher believed that she, as an individual, had equal abilities and talents as men did, and used those to climb the political ladder.
The feminism of Thatcher’s life came not from her belief in the feminist movement, but in her conviction that individuals were are equally endowed with the intellectual abilities to succeed. Thatcher’s daughter Carol wrote, “She was a hard-working example of female success from relatively lowly beginnings who had achieved cabinet rank by pragmatically getting on with the task in hand.”
This idea is core to the feminist fight for equality, and the sheer visibility of driven, intelligent women in powerful positions helps feminism more than it hurts it. This was even truer in the 1950s when Thatcher began her political career—a time when female leaders were few and far between, and Don Draper and his ilk weren't just nostalgic TV throwbacks.
Of course, it’s important to note that Thatcher’s life was privileged in many ways that allowed her to succeed in spite of gender prejudice. She was able to hire help to raise her children and, as a white woman, did not face the same race-related prejudice as do many women of color.
My point isn’t that Thatcher was the end-all be-all of female leaders, but that we shouldn't dismiss her as irrelevant to feminism. It’s very significant that a woman went as far in politics as she did, and it can teach us plenty about forging ahead in a world that does not respect your gender.
Obviously, we can do more; we can elect both men and women who vocally support women’s rights. But the more women who can command attention and respect in the political field, the more likely we are to live in a world where having a successful career is a fair fight. That’s what Thatcher’s life can teach us. That’s what matters.