An open letter to American feminists on the death of Margaret Thatcher
So yesterday was a Big Thing for Brits on the Internet. And then this happened, a statement that needed saying:
A couple of HFC members have become dismayed at some American feminist pages’ lauding of Thatcher as a feminist icon. This is not the case. She described feminism as poison. But in lauding her they are often at pains to make clear that they ‘don’t agree with the politics but as a woman in power she deserves celebrating’. This is reducing her to her gender, and ignoring the harmful effect she had on women, on the LGBTQ community, and her supporting of racist, classist and genocidal regimes. One cannot laud someone’s office whilst ignoring the crimes they do whilst there, and to reduce anyone to their gender is being sexist.
For those not in the UK, it’s easy to see her as an abstract landmark event. For the people living in the UK we have her legacy, it isn’t historic. It’s going on NOW. It’s a pretty fucked up legacy, that is hurting women, people with disabilities, and is making the UK a more and more unequal society. This is not an abstract to us. We are living this.
When a couple of us took the page in question to task on these very issues, they ignored the testimony of a 33 year old woman who was raised in poverty in Thatcher’s Britain. But in a bizarre possible form of sexism reserved all their replies for the male member of HFC.
We find the idea of forced solidarity with Thatcher based upon her gender highly patronising, and would rather celebrate the women of Greenham Common, the miner’s wives and all other women who opposed Thatcher, not because of their gender, but because of what they stood for.
(SC + PIX + IZZI) [from our Facebook page]
When we as feminists call out Caitlin Moran for racism, when we call out transphobic radical feminists — we hope to make some points about how a feminism without intersectionality isn’t a feminism we want any part of, and why bigotry isn’t feminist.
When we call FEMEN out for racism, we hope to do the same. Izzi is a Muslim and a feminist; no one is asking her to stand in solidarity with FEMEN just because they are women.
One of these pages on FB has a massive focus on intersectionality normally; we were BEYOND pissed off. Pix is the member raised in poverty by a single mum and DV survivor. Pix’s mum used to go without food to feed her and her siblings. And Pix’s mum and women like her were vilified by the government of the time. (See study here)
Pix is 33 and joked, ‘I feel like aping the bad Vietnam movie trope of “YOU WEREN’T THERE, MAN.”’
When you laud Thatcher as a feminist icon, you erase that experience. You uphold a racist, homophobic, classist woman who was probably one of the best examples of internalised misogyny to ever hit the halls of power in the UK, or as one of our members put it, ‘Holding Thatcher up as a feminist icon is like kicking intersectionality in the stomach.’
Thatcherism is alive and well in the UK today.
We dare American feminists to say that she is a feminist icon to feminists with disabilities in the UK, when they fail to consider her legacy, in the demonization of the working class and people on benefits, disability hate crimes as result of Tory rhetoric, and the ATOS medical tests that have deemed people fit for work who later died, or committed suicide in 2012.
We dare them to say that to women like Pix, and her mum, who lived in social housing whilst it was being sold off, and communities in these less affluent areas crumbled. (An excerpt from Owen Jones’s Chavs: The Demonisation Of The Working Class)
Another member found this today, from Tumblr. And it says what we were attempting to say so, so well.
My feminism doesn’t support women who go to immense lengths to cut services that directly help and benefit other women.
My feminism doesn’t support all women simply because they’re women.
My feminism doesn’t support women who use their power to plunder, steal and exacerbate class gaps.
My feminism doesn’t support warmongering and bigoted propaganda wielding.
My feminism doesn’t support anyone who upholds an apartheid state as the beacon of civilization while referring to resistance organizations as “terrorism”.
My feminism doesn’t support white supremacy, exploitation of the proletariat, imperialism and misogyny (wow, shocker, women can perpetuate misogyny!!!!) all of which thatcher was disgustingly guilty of.
My feminism doesn’t support women who reinforce the idea of a heteronormative nuclear family structure, while publicly referring to feminism as poison.
My feminism doesn’t support systematic oppression, full stop.
So, American feminists, please THINK before you get all misty eyed about ‘The Iron Lady’. Please, don’t patronise British people in marginalised sections of our society. Please don’t erase our experiences, and don’t forget your intersectionality when it comes to Lady T.
With thanks,
Hampshire Feminist Collective
Further things you may want to read as to the political landscape of the 1980s in the UK:
- Thatcher’s support of Pinochet, and turning a blind eye to human rights abuses in Chile at the time (content note: rape and torture)
- An op-ed from 2010 and the release of The Iron Lady
- How women were an essential part of the miners’ strikes and their communities in the 1980s
- The Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp
- WhyDoPeopleHateThatcher
ah that moment when she made Britain greedy to this day but then when your tables full are you going to eat all the food on it nah in the bin but thatchers Britain is made of me me mes and hope that the working mans stops fighting among rhemselves and wake up and make us peoud of our Britain without the greed jeff3
Well done Hampshire Feminist Collective for setting the record straight. It beggars belief, that any feminist individual or organisation wherever they may be on this planet, could speak kindly of Thatcher.
This is the woman that robbed the school milk from kids, that made hundreds of thousands redundant, that closed down whole industries and communities, that cared nothing for women and said that feminism was poison. How dare anyone say good of this monster.
Those of us who understand will never give up the struggle against Thatcherism. The fight goes on!