Is it feminist to… dance on Thatcher’s grave?

A (probably false ?) rumour about Thatcher not being expected to last the night, and the resulting glee accross twitter got me to wondering about feminism and Thatcher-death jubiliation.I hate Thatcher and what she did to this country, I hate Tony Blair for following in her footsteps and I hate the con-dems for cuts Thatcher would never have dreamed possible. Celebrating a person’s death is crass, however in these dark times for The People of the united kingdom, any excuse for a knees up eh?

I don’t think it’s necessarily anti feminist to dance on Thatcher’s grave because she’s a woman. Despite being the first female Prime Minister, Thatcher had no women in her cabinet and imposed ideology which was and still is rabidly anti-feminist. The current cuts to the public sector are hitting women the hardest, cuts whose foundations lie in the dogma of neoliberealism which has plagued us since the 1980s.

Thatcher wasn’t a feminist and didn’t forward women’s liberation – but she is a woman a fact that I don’t think we can ignore. I do sometimes wonder if there isn’t a little bit of misogyny in all this jubilation, a danger that in our desperation to bury Thatcher’s legacy we can fall into a habit which dictates that female politicians (left and right) are most harshly lampooned. I am thinking particularly here about Harriet Harman, Claire Short, Anne Widdecombe and Nadine Dorries all of whom seem to get a rougher ride than their male counterparts.  Again, Nadine Dorries makes my blood boil with pretty much everything that she ever says, and I am not for a moment suggesting that we do not criticise politicians because they are female. Hell, I am not even suggesting that we don’t celebrate thatcher’s death,  after all you can’t spell Schadenfreude without freude…

Thatcher death jubilation is tasteless, because she is a human. I can’t say that I’m worried about celebrations upsetting her family (her son is after-all, an arms dealing turd),and Thatcher will be dead anyway so she won’t know. I can’t imagine I would be worried about making Thatcher’s friends feel upset, if indeed she has any.

I think for many dancing on Thatcher’s grave is largely a symbolic act.  More than just another excuse to party, drinking to Thatcher’s death represents the craving of many to bury neo-liberal orthodoxy, a desperately unrealistic hope that the passing of her body will somehow lift the dark shadow of her legacy. The sad truth is thanks to Blair and others we will be haunted by her ghosts long after her body ceases to function.

So, is it feminist to dance on Thatcher’s grave?Probably not, especially if gender based insults are deployed (which they tend to be in abundance). It is in the interests of women everywhere that we bury neo-liberal capitalism which enslaves us, obviously the death of one female ex- leader is not going to bring this about.

Thacher’s death does show that no matter how tough and powerful we are, no matter how enduring our legacy – nobody is immortal, nothing lasts forever. There is, I think some comfort in that. Getting together with others to bury an unpleasant part of the past and dream about a better future is worthy of celebration by me, even if the circumstances are  somewhat crass.

My attitude is probably best summed up by this Hefner song