Margaret Thatcher And Feminism

Margaret Thatcher

Margaret Thatcher was a British stateswoman and the first female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. From 1975 to 1990 she was the Leader of the Conservative Party and she was elected three terms successively as a Prime Minister, serving for 11 years, longer than any other British prime minister of the 20th century. Her political views, based on loose economics and individual self-realization, together with her policies, were reunited under the name of Thatcherism, which remained for a long time an influential political concept in the UK.

1. Early life and education

Margaret Hilda Thatcher was born on 13 October 1925, in Grantham, Lincolnshire, as the daughter of Alfred Roberts and Beatrice Ethel. Her father was the owner

Thatcher was not only very driven, but she was also pragmatic and goal-oriented, which led to her being regarded as a future Prime Minister when she was still in her 20s. However, his possibility seemed far-fetched to her for a long time, as she considered the male population to still hold a strong prejudice against women. Nevertheless, her career advanced steadily from then on. She became the youngest woman in history to hold the position as a Parliamentary Undersecretary at the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance. From there, she switched through several important roles and by 1966 most of the party leaders considered her a great fit as a Shadow Cabinet member. As a member of the Parliament, Thatcher was highly critical of the high-tax policies of the Labour Government, she supported the decriminalization of male homosexuality, legalization of abortion, and retention of capital

Thatcher met many influential American politicians and had the chance to observe the inner mechanisms of important institutions such as the International Monetary Fund. The program helped Thatcher forge a strong identity on the British political scene, even though she was not yet a cabinet member. The embassy spoke greatly of her and even suggested that she would make a great prime minister in the future. Later that year, Thatcher became part of the Shadow Cabinet, where she held different positions before being assigned to Education. After the Conservative Party won the general election of 1970, Thatcher became Secretary of State for Education and Science. Within a few months after getting the office, Thatcher gained massive public attention because of her choice to abolish free milk for schoolchildren as an attempt to cut spending. Her decision met serious disapproval from the press and the Labour government, causing storms of protests. Thatcher was severely disheartened by the numerous attacks on her and even considered giving up on politics. However, her career would not suffer tremendously in the long term. When the Heath government lost the 1974 general election, The Conservative Party started to doubt Heath’s leadership and while Thatcher was not the primary choice for the