Margaret Thatcher : le maschere multiple del femminile

Taking its lead from Margaret Thatcher’s enduring influence as a political marketing model for current women candidates worldwide, this essay explores the cultural meanings (and the current revisions) of her public persona for the British people. In particular, it takes issue with Thatcher’s discursive and media constructions as a ‘masculine’ character, as her special grip on British public opinion and fantasies was never disjointed from her ability to don, exploit, subvert and redirect ‘motherly’ ̶̶ or at least ‘womanly’ ̶̶ performances at will. After a review of specialized literature, and addressing questions concerning this woman leader’s negotiations with the fundamentally misogynist nexus “politics/society/media”, the essay focuses on the resurfacing issue of Thatcher’s impact on women’s aspirations, and on her current metamorphosis into a Twenty-first century cultural icon and celebrity. This trend has been apparent especially since 2009 (the thirties anniversary of her coming to power), when the BBC and other media helped to forward her transformation from ‘mythical’ leader into female icon, countermanding Thatcher’s stereotyped representation as “the Iron Lady” in an attempt to restore her ‘femininity’. Such ‘re-feminization’ (and ‘re-humanization’) of her persona could be understood partly as a consequence of an across-the-board, increasing ‘feminization’ of the current political domain. Thatcher’s fresh image as a sexy, sophisticated, determined, and successful woman leader also betrays a yearning, in public opinion, for ‘stronger’ leaders to stave off what is increasingly felt to be a time of crisis and appeals to current popular opinion as an ambivalent, and yet empowering model of past power whose disciplinary subtext entails a nostalgic investment in national history.