Fuck Yeah, Gender Studies!

No, i don’t think so.

I admire her inasmuch as she challenged and overcame a great deal of sexism within British politics in general and the Tory party in particular (especially as this was back in  the 70s!) to become party leader and then PM. But that is where my admiration ends.

I have no doubt that that was a huge battle, and i can’t not give her credit for that—privileged though she was, she was one of the first women ever to do that, and was elected to be one of the most powerful women in the world! However, given her political position and the dubious achievements of her tenure as Prime Minister, I have absolutely no doubt that equality was not a creed she endorsed and therefore i can’t consider her a feminist, much less a feminist icon.

(Although, in the sense that “capital F” Feminism tends to focus only on privileged white western cis women i suppose she might be an icon for some in that camp… but i don’t count myself among them and of course can only speculate….)

she also hated feminism and said she owed nothing to the Women’s Liberation movement. “The feminists hate me, don’t they? And I don’t blame them. For I hate feminism. It is poison.” - Thatcher