Modern Women’s Health: Haunted by the Ghost of Thatcherism
Antonia Jenkinson
After a decade of Labour Government in the UK, in 1979, Margaret Thatcher and her Conservative Party rose to electoral victory over parliament for the next 11 years. Thatcher became the first female prime minister in the history of British democracy, and, political alignment aside, seemed to signal a political shift into second generation feminism that had been rising in the late 60s and early 70s, particularly with 1978 marking 50 years since the suffrage movement began. Seemingly positive propaganda insisted that women joined the labour workforce, to remedy what the government deemed as luxurious overspending by their predecessors. However, despite the capital involvement of women in the working world, social policy was not improved alongside such encouragement, generally leaving women with the burden of adopting multifaceted identities of simultaneously the house-wife and the new age working woman. Thatcher herself even seemed to believe that the politics of her early governance had put the women’s suffrage movement to an end, going so far as to state that ‘the battle for women’s rights has been largely won.’ Such a public statement coming directly from the prime minister allowed for a climate which neglected and gaslit women in healthcare spaces who were demanding better national access to comprehensive care that was in the best interests of those who menstruate. It is important to note that when discussing Thatcherism’s impact on modern healthcare for women, I am not criticizing Margaret Thatcher as an individual, but instead dissecting the indelible effects of social policies which insidiously remain in twenty first century institutions.
“The battle for women’s rights has been largely won.”
While the practicalities of the Thatcher government were certainly more nuanced than what I can address in this article, the neoliberal feminism employed by the late 70s Conservative Party resulted not in an equalized institution as it superficially claimed to do, but rather installed a climate in which women were tolerated, not appreciated, and met in the healthcare space with a casual, disposable approach. Thatcherism did not intend a rebirth of Victorian purity culture, but its insistence upon the value of the nuclear family restricted women to the commodification of their bodies as cogs in the wider machine of neoliberal capitalism. As well as this, the introduction of section 28, legislation implemented by the ’88 Thatcher government which banned the supposed ‘promotion’ of homosexuality in public spaces like schools, hugely damaged the already fragile ecosystem of queer people existing in the healthcare space. This, alongside the degradation of the welfare system in Britain, has resulted in the perfect storm of an underfunded NHS, a systemic complicity in ignoring the needs of women, and a sense of individual responsibility which leads women to this day to feel as though they should be able to manage their own pain without wasting valuable tax-payer resources.
I appreciate the hypocrisy of insisting upon individual responsibility when critiquing neoliberalism; this article is not meant to instruct one person on how they can individually dismantle centuries long systemic injustice, it rather exists in order to demand voters draw the attention of whichever government resides in parliament to the repetition of history regarding women’s health. Years of austerity in the UK has left behind groups of marginalized women, like ethnic minority groups, who are predominantly the most affected by period poverty. The politics of today are so heavily influenced by past governments, especially ones still as relevant as the Thatcher government, that novel policy is something rarely seen during campaign season, from both left- and right-wing politicians. The only viable option left, in my opinion, is a redistribution of resources to remedy the huge wealth and access to healthcare gaps left cavernous in the history of UK politics. The SuPer Project aims to alleviate the historical injustice of period poverty in the UK by providing well-made, reusable sanitary wear for free. The UK has the largest numbers of people living in period poverty in the G6 and it is time for that to change. Understanding the lasting repercussions of past political policies on modern women is integral to disassembling healthcare systems which treat women as second-class citizens.
In writing this article, despite my own personal opinions, I aim not to simply criticize the politics of an era in which I was not even born yet. Instead, I attempt to draw attention to the neglect masked as ‘modern feminism’ that has left its long-lasting imprint on women across the UK, and note similarities in contemporary politics. The problem does not lie purely with one past or present government: achieving an upheaval of entrenched norms and stigmas surrounding women’s health requires active participation in deconstructing patriarchal roots which are much further entwined with modern politics than we may be willing to admit.