Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013) was the first female Prime Minister of Great Britain whose relentless pursuit for conservative ideals is captured in her famous moniker, The Iron Lady.
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Hello, from Wonder Media Network, I’m Jenny Kaplan, and this is Encyclopedia Womannica.
Today’s politician was the first female Prime Minister of Great Britain, and the first female leader of a Western power in the post-World War II era. Her relentless pursuit for conservative ideals is captured in her famous moniker, The Iron Lady.
Let’s talk about Margaret Thatcher.
Margaret Hilda Roberts was born on October 13, 1925 in Lincolnshire, England. Her father, Alfred, owned a grocery store and was a Methodist preacher and local politician. Margaret’s mother, Beatrice, stayed home to care for Margaret and her older sister Muriel.
Margaret showed a distinct aptitude for STEM and at the age of 17, Margaret was admitted to Oxford’s Somerville College to study chemistry. Margaret’s interest in conservative politics was also evident from a young age. Barred from joining the Oxford debate society -- it didn’t allow women at the time -- she became a member, and then president, of the Oxford University Conservative Association. Following graduation, Margaret went on to pursue a masters degree in chemistry and later worked as a chemical researcher. She also attended law school and was admitted to the bar with a speciality in patent and tax law.
When she was 23 years old, she was selected to be a Conservative candidate for Parliament. While she lost both of her elections, Margaret gained media attention as a young woman running for office. A few years later, in 1949, she met Denis Thatcher, a well-off business man and decorated WWII veteran. They married two years later, and in August of 1953 Margaret gave birth to twins, Mark and Carol.
After several failed attempts, Margaret was finally elected to Parliament in 1959. In 1970, she was appointed to the cabinet position of secretary for education under the conservative Prime Minister, Edward Heath. She gained national attention for her controversial campaign to end a free-milk program for students. She argued that the money being used for the program could have more substantive effects elsewhere, but the tabloids had a field day, calling her, “Thatcher the Milk Snatcher”. It caused such backlash that her husband recommended she retire from politics.
In 1974, in a move that seemed politically unwise, Margaret put her name forward to be the leader of the Conservative party. At the time, British betting markets had the odds stacked against her 50-1. But Margaret prevailed, and became the leader of the opposition party in 1975.
For the next four years, Margaret served as the figurehead of the conservative Tory party, butting up against the Labour party that controlled parliament. In this role, she espoused views on economic freedom, limited government, privatization of industry and individual liberty. Her views became known as Thatcherism, and represented a stark departure from the post-war consensus around Keynesianism, which emphasized social welfare and economic regulation.
In 1979, the Tory party was resoundingly voted into power. Margaret Thatcher was chosen as its obvious leader and became the first female prime minister of Britain and the first woman to lead a major Western power in modern times.
As Prime Minister, Margaret set to work reshaping Britain’s economy. She cut taxes and slashed subsidies to struggling industries. She took on the National Union of Mineworkers and privatized hundreds of thousands of public jobs.
She gained international attention when Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982. British colonizers lived on these remote islands, long-claimed by Argentina. Negotiations over the islands had been dragging for years, and finally the Argentine military decided to take the Falklands by force. The U.S. and other allies pushed for talks, hoping to ward-off bloody conflict. But Margaret was uninterested in a diplomatic solution. Instead, she ordered a Royal Navy fleet to the South Atlantic. The following ten-week war took the lives of 250 British troops and more than 1,000 Argentinians. It cemented Margaret’s reputation as a leader who would not be pushed around.
Throughout the 1980s, Margaret worked closely with U.S. President Ronald Reagan. While very different in style, the two had a shared world view and supported each other’s visions for government. Margaret’s relationship with Regan was influential in hastening the end of the Cold War. Margaret was of the first world leaders to embrace the Soviet Union’s new, reform-minded leader, Mikhail Gorbachev. She helped facilitate conversations between Gorbachev and Reagan, including the summit in Reykjavik, Iceland in October of 1986. At the meeting, Gorbachev and Reagan came very close to an agreement to ban nuclear weapons altogether, but at the last moment, the negotiations fell apart. Still, it represented a meaningful step towards disarmament.
In 1987, shortly after being elected to a third term, the stock market crashed. Having secured reelection on an economy-focused platform, Margaret suddenly found herself on unstable ground. A split arose within the Tory party. There were calls to tie the British pound to the more-stable German mark. Margaret disagreed vehemently with this approach as she was wary of further integration with Europe. By 1989, Britain was in a recession and much of the blame was placed on Margaret.
In November of 1990, many of Margaret’s original cabinet members had abandoned her, and the Conservative party moved to put a new party leader in place. In the first vote, she fell short of the necessary majority needed to prevent a second vote. After initially proclaiming that she would fight to the end, Margaret withdrew her name. A protege of hers, John Major, was elected six days later.
Margaret remained a member of Parliament until 1992 when she formally retired. Out of office, Margaret remained a vocal public figure. She toured the world drawing large crowds and giving lectures on her conservative ideals. She was a vocal supporter of both Presidents George H, and George W Bush, and of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
Following a series of strokes, she retired from public speaking in 2002. After a long, quiet, battle with dementia, Margaret passed away in 2013. She was 88 years old.
Margaret Thatcher remains, to this day, one of the most divisive political figures of the 20th century. Perhaps she would have wanted it that way, because as she once said herself, "I am not a consensus politician. I'm a conviction politician."
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