Wonder Woman of the Week: Margaret Thatcher

One world leader famous for her proverbial “iron fist” approach to leadership. But perhaps her post leadership image has been distorted and the choices she was forced to make under extreme circumstances are over criticized. Her time as a world leader is remembered today for brutal militarism during the fall of an empire. Thrust into a position of authority and called upon to maintain the crumbling might of a decaying state, this world leader maintained her poise under pressure, coordinated armies to protect her nation’s colonies, and waged campaigns of social reform. The Wonder Woman of the Week is Margaret Thatcher.

Margaret Roberts was born in 1925 to a grocer family in Lincolnshire, England. Roberts’ father Alfred Roberts had a major impact on young Margaret’s life growing up and instilled the values of Methodism, hard work, and public service in his daughter. During the Second World War, Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s speeches of defiance against the tyranny of Nazi Germany inspired a sense of heroism in the young woman and eventually led to Roberts entering a career in politics. [1]

In her mid twenties, Margaret Roberts ran as the Conservative candidate for Dartford’s seat in the General Elections of 1950 and 1951- launching the young woman into her life-long career in politics. While she was unable to push her party into the majority, Roberts did have an ability no male Conservative Party members had in communicated across parties and gaining allies from across diverse points of view. [2]

In 1951, Margaret Roberts married Denis Thatcher to become Margaret Thatcher and soon later gave birth to her first child. Simultaneously, Thatcher was in law school and studying for the bar exams and earned her law degree in 1954. In 1959, Thatcher ran for parliament again and easily won the seat. In the face of opposition to unpopular policies, Thatcher not only maintained her seat in parliament but went on to defeat the seating prime minister in the 1975 elections to become the first (and thus far only) female Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. [3]

At the time of Margaret Thatcher’s rise to leadership, the United Kingdom was facing the realities of decolonization- from the loss of colonies in Asia and Africa; the United Kingdom was grappling with resource depletion, high rates of unemployment, and an identity struggle in their post-colonial world. Margaret Thatcher’s response was to cut inflation and refused to cut minimum wages. Instead, she cut back on printing new money to strengthen the pound. She coordinated military strategy with US presidents during Desert Storm and sent soldiers in the Falkland Islands to protect British interests in South America against the growing presence of Argentinean dictatorship. [4]

During her time in office, Thatcher own Conservative Party was entering an era of division- forcing Thatcher to not only have the job of maintaining the crumbling authority of the United Kingdom, but also maintaining the crumbling authority of her party. In 1979, Thatcher lost the support of her own party and resigned rather than allow herself to lose a reelection. Thatcher withdrew from the career that defined her as the “Iron Lady” after her resignation and died at eighty-seven years old in 2013. [5]

While many citizens of the United Kingdom continue to debate whether or not Margaret Thatcher was a hero or a villain, there is no debate over the scale of hardships faced by the only prime minister in the history of the UK. Thatcher faced labor strikes, inflation, war, and decolonization. She was responsible for maintaining the few remaining colonies of the British Empire in a post-colonial world, reforming a crumbling economy, decreasing alarmingly high unemployment, and doing so under the banner of a political party rife with internal conflict. Not only did Thatcher accomplish all of these, but she did so with the strength of leadership not seen in Britain since the age of the first Queen Elizabeth.

“Margaret Thatcher: From Grocer’s Daughter to Iron Lady.” iWonder. BBC; 2017. Web. 1 February 2017.

“Biography.” Margaret Thatcher Foundation. 2017. Web. 1 February 2017.

“Margaret Thatcher.” History.com. A&E Networks; 2017. 1 February 2017.

Moore, Charles. “The Invincible Mrs. Thatcher.” HIVE. Vanity Fair; December 2011. Web. 1 February 2017.

Gregory, Joseph R. “Margaret Thatcher, ‘Iron Lady’ Who Set Britain on New Course, Dies at 87.” New York Times. 8 April 2013. Web. 1 February 2017.