I said, I don't think it's OK to be so gleeful as some people are at her death. Assess her, criticise her, fine, but glee?
Well, but she hurt a lot of people. I can't claim that my family was directly impacted by what she did, but I have a lot of close friends whose families suffered a lot thanks to her policies. Sure, there are some people who are just dog-piling out of short-lived clicktivism, but I think there are a lot of people who are reacting with 'glee', or however you want to term it, who lost their livelihoods or family members to her policies. For them, this moment is undoubtedly cathartic: Thatcher's effect on their lives was an unqualified negative, and I think asking them to somehow deny their feelings makes me uneasy. They were the ones who were hurt, and she was the one who did the hurting.
I'm not championing the way she got there or what she did when she was there but also - male politicians trample on woman to get where they are, and undermine women when they get into power. did she really do anything different, other than be a woman while she did it? And if not, is it fair to expect more of her than any of them?
I think this is a little bit of a strawman argument. The fact that other people engage in equally unethical behaviour doesn't excuse what she did—anymore than I think that the fact there are lots of sexist male right-wing activists excuses what Phyllis Schlafly does for a living. I equally don't think that framing it as 'is it fair to expect more of her' is right when the standard being applied is 'did this person act like a decent human being?'
For three quarters of my life, my country's had female presidents (Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese), and we've had two female Tánaistí (Mary Harney and Mary Coughlan, and I swear, not every Irish female politician is called Mary). Robinson was a wonderful president, McAleese I was rather lukewarm towards, and both Harney and Coughlan helped preside over the current tanking of the Irish economy and social infrastructure. It does matter to see a woman in power, but I think it matters even more to see a woman exercise power, and how.
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Well, but she hurt a lot of people. I can't claim that my family was directly impacted by what she did, but I have a lot of close friends whose families suffered a lot thanks to her policies. Sure, there are some people who are just dog-piling out of short-lived clicktivism, but I think there are a lot of people who are reacting with 'glee', or however you want to term it, who lost their livelihoods or family members to her policies. For them, this moment is undoubtedly cathartic: Thatcher's effect on their lives was an unqualified negative, and I think asking them to somehow deny their feelings makes me uneasy. They were the ones who were hurt, and she was the one who did the hurting.
I'm not championing the way she got there or what she did when she was there but also - male politicians trample on woman to get where they are, and undermine women when they get into power. did she really do anything different, other than be a woman while she did it? And if not, is it fair to expect more of her than any of them?
I think this is a little bit of a strawman argument. The fact that other people engage in equally unethical behaviour doesn't excuse what she did—anymore than I think that the fact there are lots of sexist male right-wing activists excuses what Phyllis Schlafly does for a living. I equally don't think that framing it as 'is it fair to expect more of her' is right when the standard being applied is 'did this person act like a decent human being?'
For three quarters of my life, my country's had female presidents (Mary Robinson and Mary McAleese), and we've had two female Tánaistí (Mary Harney and Mary Coughlan, and I swear, not every Irish female politician is called Mary). Robinson was a wonderful president, McAleese I was rather lukewarm towards, and both Harney and Coughlan helped preside over the current tanking of the Irish economy and social infrastructure. It does matter to see a woman in power, but I think it matters even more to see a woman exercise power, and how.