Blogging and Margaret Thatcher

One of the things I love about blogging is how it’s really just an extended conversation with a bunch of friends. You see, I’m sitting here saying “now where were we? Ah yes. Margaret Thatcher.” It feels to me like we were chatting away over coffee, everyone chipping in, and I was just about to say a big thank you to you all for dropping by, and then the doorbell rang. It was an award being delivered. So then I had to show off the award, decide who to pass it on to, and just as I was rewinding to what I really wanted to talk about, there was a phone call, about a picture meme. I’d been dying to show off my mural to you all anyway, so I had to dig out some pictures and pass them round. So here I am, still drawing breath, and still saying “where were we?”

Perhaps this is why blogging is such comfortable territory to people with small children. Which of you hasn’t had a conversation along the following lines?

“It’s not the same as going out after work for a drink and chatting to someone all evening. Huh. Lucky if we get an hour before ‘someone’ gets tired and we have to head home.”

“Yup, and it’s not like it’s proper conversation anyway. [Sigh] I guess that’s just one more skill we all develop. The art of talking while chasing a snotty-nosed toddler round the room with a tissue. Come here, you.”

“Right. They never warned us how we’d have to talk in two-sentence chunks all the time. Share nicely please. I mean, it’s fine. You get used to it. I said ‘Share’. But it’s not the same. Anyway, what were you saying about your mother-in-law’s ingrowing toenails? If you can’t take turns, we’ll have to put that Postman Pat V-Tech learn your shapes and colours talking boomerang right away. Surgery?”

Those of us who are a bit longer in the motherhood tooth no longer even have the novelty of self-congratulatory awareness that we are doing new things. Get me. I’m so multi-tasking. We’re the ones who would now probably struggle to talk to the same colleague for a whole evening and would be thinking of a way to leave the pub politely. We merely furrow our brows, and search each other’s faces in companionable memory-lapse silence, until one of us says “Margaret Thatcher”, and the other slaps the table, takes a gulp of tepid coffee, and replies:

“Yes. Margaret Thatcher. Well, I loved everyone’s comments, and what an interesting read they made. As for my own opinion, well, it rather changed as a result of the debate. I’ll even confess to lying awake at night not being able to sleep for thoughts of Margaret Thatcher.

I started off with several of you, thinking she wasn’t a proper woman, because she got to the top by being like a man. Then I realized what a very unfeminist position that is. We women really are our own worst enemies. I mean, what would I want a woman Prime Minister to be? Someone younger, more attractive, more fashionable, whose choice of outfit would make the news alongside her policies? Or a mother of young children, so we could all smugly wonder whether she found time to help her children learn their spellings in between meetings at Number 10 and voting at the House of Commons? How we love to do down women who achieve. Yes, we are our own worst enemies. This article, put my way by A Modern Mother, says it so well. It’s about Rachida Dati, the French politician who took five days’ maternity leave when she had her baby. Five days. I can't even imagine... But I don't need to. She's not me. She doesn't have my life, I don't have hers. That's the point.

So I have shifted. I now think Margaret Thatcher was a proper woman (handbag and all). I think she found her way, fought her way, to where she wanted to be, regardless of her gender. She was a feminist without having a feminist agenda. And yes, I think it did make a difference. I don’t think she was exactly a role model, but having a woman PM did prove to us all that no sphere of life could any longer be considered the sole preserve of men.

I’ve just created a picture of her for myself (and this is pure whimsy) losing her thread, and scanning Geoffrey Howe’s face in a moment of silence, before slapping the cabinet room table and exclaiming 'The Single European Currency. Yes. I knew there was something else I wanted to talk to you about.'"

I have a question

All the excitement that the world has been feeling on Obama's inauguration day has got me thinking. I have a question for you. Now, it's not meant to be making clever comparisons, or drawing parallels, or grinding an axe or anything like that, so please don't get all upset with me. It's just something I've been pondering, and I would be interested to know what you all think, on both sides of the Atlantic.

When Margaret Thatcher became the first woman Prime Minister in the UK, there was a sense of excitement, surprise, achievement, history (I don't really remember, but I think there was, although nothing compared to yesterday of course). Women had had the vote only since 1928, fifty years before. My question is this. Did Margaret Thatcher's appointment change life for British women? Do we see ourselves differently? Do we have different ambitions? What about for British men? What about people outside Britain? Has it, three decades down the line, made a difference? Ah, that's more than one question. Alright. Just answer the last one.

My ponderings were extended by this post, on the blog She's not from Yorkshire, which is written by 3 American women living in Yorkshire. I love reading their experiences - the mirror of mine in some ways. I was intrigued to read what they say about feminism in Britain, backed up by other American commenters. I can't decide whether I agree with them or not. What do you all think? (OK then, 2 questions, but you can just stick to the first if you like.)