I believe that there are a number of reasons for her lack of interest, apparent or real. One reason may well be – and many have advanced this argument – that she was a queen bee and wanted no competition in the hive. But as always with Margaret Thatcher, there are no facile explanations, and the truth about her is always complicated.
Chapter 8 of this book explored the various ways in which Margaret Thatcher was an outsider in the world she chose to conquer. We have seen how she described herself as being ‘portrayed as an outsider, who, by some odd mixture of circumstances had stepped inside and stayed there for eleven-and-a-half years; in my case the portrayal was not inaccurate’. If she felt herself to be an outsider by class, education, academic discipline and formation, how much more of an outsider, in the world she had chosen, did she feel herself to be as a woman? And not just any woman, but the first woman to be Prime Minister of Britain?
There is no indication that her father, the formidable Alderman Roberts, saw any particular limit to what she could achieve. There is no record of him telling her that she could not do this or that because she was a woman. She went to a girls’ school and a women’s college at Oxford, and did not lack for female role models. The thought that she might be prevented by her gender from doing what she wanted does not seem to have occurred to her. She apparently had no difficulty in getting a job as a research scientist, qualifying for the Bar and entering Chambers, although she does say in The Path to Power that she was, as a woman, at times made to ‘feel small in industry, at the Bar, and in Tory constituency politics’. She did have misgivings about becoming an MP when the pay would not have been enough to support her, but once the job attracted a salary of a thousand pounds per annum, she knew she could afford to pursue her aim. In the event, of course, she married a rich man, and, as she always pointed out, this helped in many ways, not least with the cost of childcare and secretarial help in the Commons. It really is possible that she thought that other women could do what she had done.
It is also possible to argue that her generation – she was born in 1925 – had something to do with her apparent imperviousness to the enormous wave of feminist thought which hit Britain in the early 1960s, with much media coverage and discussion of the ideas of Betty Friedan and Simone de Beauvoir. Until she set out on her political career, she had encountered no insuperable problems on account of her gender. She was already a noticeable and ambitious MP by the time that women everywhere were talking about feminism. She would certainly not have wished to be typecast as an MP over-concerned with ‘women’s issues’, and it is at least possible that she deliberately concentrated on other policy areas, like the economy. It is entirely understandable that she might not have wanted to become pigeon-holed. The sheer amount of prejudice she encountered on her way to the top might have felled a lesser mortal. To have courted even more prejudice and snubs for devoting herself to causes important mainly to women would have been too much to expect from any politician of her generation determined to reach the top.
When she arrived in the Commons, it was to encounter an atmosphere of comfortable clubby male exclusiveness, where women were an oddity and emphatically not One of Us. She apparently felt that ability was valued regardless of gender among MPs, but her view does not seem have been shared by many of her male colleagues. There were only twelve women Conservative MPs, including her, and as Jim Prior put it, ‘The few women in the parliamentary party tended not to be accepted so easily by their male colleagues’ (Campbell, Margaret Thatcher, p.123).
(Old House of Commons habits die quite hard. When I arrived there in 1987, thirty years later, one senior Conservative colleague called me Betty. When I corrected him, he said, ‘Oh, I call you all Betty, you all look the same to me.’)
According to Brenda Maddox, when Margaret Thatcher first entered the Commons she was not regarded as particularly clubbable even by other women MPs. But she did understand the importance of women in Parliament working together in a common cause, which was, as she confided to Shirley Williams: ‘We have to show them (the men) that we’re better than they are.’ Shirley Williams added that she got the impression that Mrs Thatcher found men ‘agreeable, playful, and in the end not very serious creatures’.
If women were a rare breed as backbenchers, they were even rarer in government. There are countless examples in this book of the condescension and disdain with which Margaret Thatcher was treated, as a minister and Secretary of State, and as Leader of the Opposition, simply because she was a woman. Some civil service mandarins were as patronising as her political colleagues. Both in the country and within the Conservative Party, there was a broad body of opinion that doubted her ability, as a woman, to lead the party to victory in the 1979 election, and, when she had done that, to be a credible Prime Minister.
Interestingly, this perception was never shared by the so-called blue-collar voters in the C1 and C2 categories, or to put it another way, the skilled working class, who consistently supported her throughout her premiership. I will always remember, in 1987, canvassing around 300 or so women agricultural workers, or gang women, during their lunch break in a horticultural nursery. These women were as tough as it gets, on a par with the famous ‘buffies’ in the Sheffield steel industry, or those sorting coal at the drift mines of Cumbria. I asked which way they were going to vote in the election. They said, ‘For Mrs Thatcher.’ I asked why. They replied, ‘Because she tell the men.’
But one should not underestimate the degree of disbelief and anxiety from others that surrounded her as a woman leader who held the party’s fortunes in her hand. After her first speech as leader at the Conservative Party Conference in 1975, Denis Thatcher confessed that he had not been so frightened of anything since the war, such was the apprehension about the reaction of the party faithful to a woman leader. The speech got a warm welcome, in the event, but that welcome was by no means guaranteed beforehand.
Even when she became Prime Minister, the sniping from male colleagues did not stop. Sir Richard Parsons gives a truly dreadful example of Cabinet disloyalty in the early 1980s. He begins by describing his first meeting with Margaret Thatcher at a meeting of the European Security Conference in Budapest, in 1977.
I had long been interested in Mrs Thatcher, a graduate of Somerville College, Oxford, like my mother. For all her external toughness, it was obvious from the start that Margaret Thatcher was really rather a kind woman brimming with feminine virtues. To my surprise, I found that I was not afraid of her at all. That was a great relief. I started by telling her that my mother, like her, had been at Somerville, though many years before. I said that at the end of her life, she had said how glad she was that a Somerville woman would one day become Prime Minister, though it was a pity, she thought, ‘that she only read stinks’. That was an old-fashioned slang word for chemistry. Mrs T. responded with a cold glance. But she must have been amused because I later heard her repeating my story on the other side of the room.
Between 1980 and 1984, Sir Richard served as Britain’s ambassador in Madrid.
Spain had been out of bounds to most British politicians during the Franco era. They did not want to appear to be hobnobbing with the last of the Fascist dictators. Now they seized the opportunity to remedy this deficiency. About half of the Thatcher Cabinet came to stay with me in Madrid. Over late-night drinks, they told me how things were going at home. I was almost shocked to find that with the notable exception of loyal deputies such as Willie Whitelaw and Peter Carrington, most of the Thatcher ministers had in private a distinctly satirical attitude towards their own Prime Minister. They even gave imitations of the great lady. And they talked about her in a way that no British Cabinet minister would have spoken about a male Prime Minister. It was clear that Mrs T. was paying the price for being our first woman Prime Minister. Take, for example, her amiable habit of breaking off long meetings at No. 10 to go upstairs and personally brew tea and coffee for all concerned. They seemed to see this as a hilarious womanly peculiarity. I just thought how
human she seemed to be. My suspicion is that this sort of attitude put pressure on Mrs T. to toughen up and become more strident and demanding as her long term of office increased the strain. She did, after all, have to deal with such adversaries as the Argentine colonels and the aggressive leaders of the unfortunate miners.
Sir Richard might have added, ‘and also those she might legitimately have assumed to be on her side’.
One could therefore argue that a woman politician who had endured all of this would be very cautious in what and how much she said about the cause of women, for the sake of her own credibility, not to say survival, in the context of the 1970s and 1980s. Given the nature of the particular challenges she had to face – extraordinary economic problems, the Falklands conflict, the Miners’ Strike, and European issues – she might perhaps be forgiven for not giving the advancement of women more prominence, or, if not forgiven, at least understood.
One of the best records that exists of Margaret Thatcher’s own views on the subject of women is contained in the lecture she gave in late July 1982 to the Society of Townswomen’s Guilds, reproduced in full in the Appendix. The lecture was in celebration of the centenary of Dame Margery Corbett Ashby, the distinguished campaigner for women’s rights.
She points out in the lecture that at that time, 1982, there were only twenty-one women MPs in a House of Commons with 635 members in all, a fact she thinks would have disappointed the early suffragettes. She says that, following in the tradition of Asquith and Gladstone, who opposed women’s suffrage,
Winston Churchill had often felt the same way about women in political life. And when I went to see Lady Churchill, shortly after I became Leader of the Party – because I wanted to see her, she was a wonderful woman in her own right – and she reminded me of this; and she said, ‘but you know I always used to argue with Winston over it’. And I guess she did.
She asserts that while her generation takes the view that ‘the home should be the centre but not the boundary of a woman’s life’, women bring ‘special talents and experiences to public life’, precisely because they ‘bear the children and run the home’. This is a view she often repeated, emphasising that women are the doers in public life, while men are the talkers. (It is also a view frequently advanced by today’s prominent women; they call it multi-tasking.)
She also claims that
the battle for women’s rights has been largely won. The days when these were demanded and discussed in strident tones should be gone for ever. And I hope they are. I hated those strident tones that you still hear from some Women’s Libbers. The battle is largely won, but we must now see women’s rights in perspective and turn our attention to how we could use human rights to build the kind of world we wish our children to live in.
The content of this lecture is drafted with the utmost care, to balance her view that women could and should achieve as she had, with her equally strong view that women’s domestic role brought particular insights and skills into the workplace.
Just two weeks after she left office she gave an interview to Fiona Millar for The House magazine (an incredible demonstration of courage in itself), in which she talked about Denis and the family, and about combining her work as an MP with her family responsibilities.
I was very lucky because my husband worked in town, we lived in town and most of my work was here (in the Commons). It would have been very different had Denis worked in Leeds or Manchester or Glasgow. I couldn’t have done half the things I have done. He has been a tremendously important part of my life and we were never far away from the children. When they went to boarding schools we deliberately chose ones which were close at hand so we could always get there very quickly. I didn’t stand in the 1955 election because the children were too young, and then Finchley came along about 1958 and I applied and got it. I could only have applied for seats which were close to London. I just didn’t feel I could leave the children … The other great thing about being an MP is that some of the holidays coincide with the children’s, so I was able to spend some time with them then. Although I was very busy and out and about, I could take them around with me so it fitted in very well.
I think you could just as easily say that the Westminster system isn’t geared for men as for women. You do have to sacrifice a great deal but it has worked very well for most people … there are a lot of jobs which involve travel, so I think sometimes you just have to make the very best of what you’ve got. Then life is brighter than if you are constantly looking at what you haven’t got.
It is interesting that in this interview, she gives no hint at all that there should be special arrangements for women MPs, or indeed for any working women. She continued to insist on an even-handed approach to the interests of men and women. Conservative Party policy continues to oppose positive discrimination for women, a policy most visible in the party’s continuing opposition to all-women shortlists for selecting parliamentary candidates.
However, Margaret Thatcher did have concerns about some policy areas which were obviously important to women. She frequently used the Conservative Women’s National Committee as a sounding board, as Joan Seccombe remembers.
My first encounter with Margaret Thatcher was in the late 1960s when, as a new women’s branch chairman in Yardley in Birmingham, I attended the Conservative National Conference in London. Margaret was one of the speakers and I have a vivid memory of her in a large blue hat with the brim bobbing up and down as she made her points. I did not see that hat again but, fortunately, it would be the first of many encounters I had with Margaret in the years to come.
In those days around 1,000 representatives attended the Conservative Women’s Conference each year. Many of these women did not have outside careers and the income which went with this. Money was tight for young families and the branch secretaries used to collect a weekly amount from all representatives to ensure everyone had the funds to cover the expenses of the bus. The nation was still living through the aftermath of the war and these trips to London were the highlight of a much simpler life than the one we have today.
People were often more involved in the party at a variety of levels and membership levels were at a record high. The Conservative Party had 3 million members at this time. Membership of the party did not just satisfy political interests but allowed people to engage in the full range of social activities which were available. You were able to join the Young Conservatives and then work your way up through either the women’s organisation or the Conservative Policy Centre, and all at a branch level. I worked my way up and was delighted when I reached my position as Women’s Branch Chairman for the Acocks Green ward in the Yardley constituency. This enabled me to travel to the Women’s Conference and see the range of speakers.
Margaret was young, glamorous and very articulate with the valuable asset of always being able to express herself in a simple manner which could be easily understood. We felt her to be one of us, the mother of small children who understood the difficulties of juggling life. We applauded her appointment as Secretary of State for Education in 1970, from where she started on her dazzling parliamentary career.
I came to know Margaret on a personal level when I was made an area women’s chairman in 1977 and started attending biannual visits to No. 10. These meetings were an opportunity to discuss research papers which we had written on issues such as ‘The Cinderella Service’ – a paper highlighting the poor standing and pay nurses were given in the NHS at the time. This particular research paper was instigated by Lady Young and was a landmark for nurses in the NHS. It was widely discussed by the public and in the media and thankfully helped change the position nurses were given in our society.
These meetings were not just social visits but provided a forum for serious political work and reporting to which the Prime Minister responded. We, in turn, were able to take back news and updates to the constituencies on the local issues they had raised. This clear conduit into the heart of government worked extremely well and showed an admi
rable engagement between No. 10 and the grass roots.
People often say that Margaret Thatcher was not a ‘woman’s woman’, yet she always told us that she valued our comments more than most because she heard exactly what was happening on the ground in the constituencies. She heard it in a ‘no holds barred’ manner and encouraged us to be frank and open. We formed a group of well-briefed, feisty and fearless women and her welcome to us was warm and generous. I always felt that she gave the impression she had limitless time for us and our opinions.
I found as a new MP, and then as a very junior social security minister while Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister, that there were certain policy areas on which she was immoveable, because they mattered to women. Child benefit was a case in point. Every year, Treasury ministers (or more probably Treasury officials) try to have a go at reducing the cost of universal child benefit. They certainly tried it on in preparations for the two Budgets when I was in the Treasury, in 1991 and 1992. It was undoubtedly the same with Margaret Thatcher at No. 10. She would say, time after time, ‘This is the only payment which goes direct to the mother. It is hers for her children, and it must not be touched.’
In The Downing Street Years she writes about family policies:
There are limits beyond which ‘family policy’ should not seek to go. That is why I considered it important to encourage voluntary bodies which had the right values and vision, like Mrs Margaret Harrison’s ‘Homestart’, whose 6,000 voluntary workers were themselves parents and offered friendship, common-sense advice, and support in the family home. I preferred if at all possible that direct help should come from someone other than professional social workers.
The Real Iron Lady Page 18