The Female Political Leader:

a study of gender-identity in the case

of Margaret Thatcher

Abstract

This work examines the linguistic construction of gender identity in the discourse of Margaret

Thatcher. Identity is defined in the terms of Bucholtz and Hall (2005) as an ‘emergent’ phenomenon,

depending on local contexts of interaction. In analysing the contributions by media figures to

processes of identity construction recourse is made to the theories of Turner and Oakes (e.g. 1989) in

the field of social identity theory. Interviewers’ questions are examined for what they reveal about

identity presuppositions. Mrs Thatcher at times plays along with these presuppositions, ignores them,

or objects to them. Her answers tell us something about the identity she wishes to construct. The

work focuses on Thatcher’s first major political breakthrough; her conquest of the Conservative

leadership in 1975. The toolkit for examining identity in discourse proposed by Bucholtz and Hall

(2005) is adopted, and Corpus Linguistics and the Appraisal Framework of Martin and White (2005)

are used in support of the selected tools.

KEYWORDS: Identity inferences, political discourse analysis, self-categorization theory, Appraisal

Framework, Evaluation, social stereotype, gender identity

1. Introduction

This essay explores the question of gender identity in the case of Margaret Thatcher, with special

reference to her first important political breakthrough; her selection, in 1975, as Conservative Party

Leader. Although Britain is accustomed to being reigned over by female sovereigns, Mrs Thatcher

was her first female Prime Minister. The press conference which followed her selection as leader of

the Opposition – and, hence, as a probable future Prime Minister – was marked by intense media

speculation in this area, as if the press were trying to pinpoint more precisely the kind of woman who

might one day hold this crucial office.

1.i. Identity

Identity, as an analytical notion in humanistic research traditions, has become, as Maleševic (2003)

points out, extremely familiar, especially in post-structuralist contexts. The term will need some

definition, however, as its technical meaning differs somewhat from its common sense of ‘what

somebody is like’. Maleševic (2003: 267) traces the development of the term, as its traditional,

Cartesian connotations were challenged in the sixties and seventies by a structuralist view which saw

it instead as a social, institutional construct (e.g. Althusser 1994, Barthes 1972).

Connolly (1991: 64) expresses a traditional notion of identity, that denied by the structuralists, as

follows:

My identity is what I am and how I am recognized rather than what I choose, want or consent to.

It is the dense self from which choosing, wanting and consenting proceed.

In Althusser’s theories, by contrast, powerful social institutions such as church, family and the mass

media are able to impose ‘collective forms of identity’ on ‘unresisting subjects’ (Maleševic 2003:

267).

1.ii. Identity in discourse analysis

In discourse analysis, identity is generally understood in a fluid sense; above all, its dependence on

local contexts of interaction (Bucholtz and Hall 2005: 585-6) is frequently emphasised. In

Conversation Analysis, for example, Widdicombe (1998: 202, 3) states that identities are ‘the

products of joint action and the intersubjective organization of verbal interaction’.

This study maintains an interactive perspective, analysing Mrs Thatcher’s appearance in a variety

of discursive contexts. As Bucholtz and Hall (2005: 588) term the matter, identity is viewed as

the emergent product, rather than the pre-existing source, of linguistic and other semiotic

practices, and therefore as fundamentally a social and cultural phenomenon.

Identity, therefore, rather than being an attribute of an individual – some sort of intrinsic essence

which precedes and determines their contributions to any discursive situation – is a product which

emerges, by degrees, during discursive interaction, and can be modified at any stage of it. It therefore

depends, crucially, on contributions of interlocutors to the discourse as it unfolds.

In the study I use a general notion of ‘membership categorization’, derived from Sacks (1992) and

refined by Turner and Oakes (1989), to explore the way Thatcher’s responses to journalists’

questions position her as a particular kind of female.

If such a perspective is relevant for the discursive construction of identities of ordinary people

(see, for example, Antaki and Widdicombe 1998), it is still more appropriate to a study of political

identity. The public identities of politicians, arguably, are partly fictitious, the products of an

amalgam between the politicians’ own personalities and what they believe will please the public

taste. Certain aspects of what might be termed the politician’s ‘true self’ – Nixon’s tendency for

duplicity, Clinton’s to womanise – are elided from the public persona until circumstances compel

their admission - at which point the political capital of the figure in question is generally

compromised.

Considerations, therefore, such as how voter-friendly certain identities might be, will seldom be

far from view. The Russians christened Mrs Thatcher ‘the iron lady’, while for her husband, at least,

she was ‘sweetie-pie’ (Campbell 2004: 732). We are not concerned to establish which corresponds

more closely to her true identity. Of more relevance is the fact that Mrs Thatcher, and the media,

made discursive use of the former identity, while the latter remained a private affair.

It will be seen that the emergent identity is not simply determined by Mrs Thatcher herself, but is

a joint product, as the media search for an identity they can sell to the public. As Bucholtz and Hall

(2005: 606) put it, in fact, identities are understood to be ‘in part an outcome of others’ perceptions

and representations’.

1.iii. Margaret Thatcher, a woman in politics

“Ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you tonight in my green chiffon evening gown, my face softly

made up, my fair hair gently waved…the Iron Lady of the Western World”

(Margaret Thatcher, quoted in Charteris-Black 2005: 87)

More has been written about Margaret Thatcher than any other British politician since Churchill; and

while much of this output has naturally been in the fields of Political Science and Economics, her

discourse has also been extensively studied (Atkinson 1984, Fairclough and Wodak 1997, Charteris-

Black 2005, etc.).

Political discourse analysis, in general, has not placed the question of individual identity at the

centre of its concerns. It has concentrated, instead, on such questions as what constitutes successful

oratory (Atkinson 1984, Halmari and Virtanen 2005); or, taking a broadly critical perspective, topics

such as racism (Chilton 2004: 110), conservative ideology (Chilton and Schäffner 2002), power

relations (Fairclough 1992: 93), the language of a specific political party (Fairclough 2000), and so

on. Charteris-Black (2005), although exploring Thatcher’s identity in some detail, concentrates more

on her use of metaphor.

Of more relevance to the present study is work such as Antaki and Widdicombe (1998), which

focuses on the identities of ordinary people as these emerge in a variety of interactive contexts. Since

Mrs Thatcher was a high-profile public figure, however, it cannot be assumed that her replies to

journalists represent the emergence of a purely personal identity. A more relevant perspective sees

her engaged in what Charteris-Black (2005: 87) terms the ‘manufacture and projection of a political

image’.

Some observers feel that for a woman to succeed in politics, she has to make compromises in the

area of gender identity. Atkinson (1984: 116), for example, on the subject of Mrs Thatcher, writes:

Given that successful women face the dilemma of being ‘damned if they behave like men, and

damned if they don’t’, one solution is to behave in as efficient, tough and decisive a manner as

possible, while at the same time making no concessions whatsoever in maintaining the external

trappings of femininity.

The writer implies that qualities such as efficiency, toughness, and decisiveness are generally thought

of as ‘male’ rather than ‘female’. It is not necessarily the case, however, that voters will respond

negatively to a female politician who associates herself with qualities one might consider as

stereotypically male. Hillary Clinton, for example, comes over to some voters as ambitious, tough

and outspoken, yet many of the same voters claim to like these qualities in her (Pew Research Center

2008).

In this context, the career of Margaret Thatcher appears especially relevant. She was, in British

and European politics, a pioneer – the first female leader of a major political party, and the first to

hold the highest political office. The issues of identity construction she confronted appear in sharp

relief because there were no precedents. As Charteris-Black (2005: 87) points out, she

deliberately set out to excel in characteristics that are conventionally attached to men: authority,

courage, firmness, determination and the will to succeed.

She took elocution lessons in order to lower the pitch of her voice, to remove the shrill, screechy

tones associated with petulant females (Atkinson 1984: 113). At the same time, as Atkinson (ibid:

116) makes clear, she strenuously cultivated a female persona:

[Mrs Thatcher] consistently sought to make the most of her natural physical attractiveness. This

has included the preservation of her blonde hair by regular tinting and elimination of a gap in her

teeth by dental capping. Nor has she been afraid to be seen in the traditional female roles of wife

and mother, even to the extent of being photographed at the kitchen sink

The final detail here underlines a crucial element of the process of identity construction in which all

politicians, male or female, participate; the pose for the cameras, the self-conscious projection of

themselves as a particular kind of person – here, as a particular kind of woman, someone with whom

every housewife can identify.

1.iv. An example: interview after maiden speech in House of Commons

This exchange took place on 6th February 1960, following Mrs Thatcher’s maiden speech in the

House of Commons, although it was apparently only broadcast in 1975, when she became Leader of

the Opposition:

Q. Have you been able to combine your political life with looking after a family, running a home?

MT. Well, I mainly do the catering here—I love cooking and I do the shopping, and always a big batch of

cooking at the weekend, and of course there are the parliamentary recesses, which coincide with the school

holidays, so I can see quite a good bit of the children and take them out, and at half term they come up to

the House of Commons and have lunch with me.

Several themes of this study are exemplified here: firstly, the role of the media in the construction of

the identity of a public figure. By probing the question of Mrs Thatcher’s gender identity, the

journalist establishes a discursive ‘frame’ (Lakoff 2003) within which the interaction will proceed.

Not only do the press mediate the identities of public figures to their mass audiences, they also have

an active role in creating these identities, since their questions set the parameters within which the

interviewee can negotiate what Bucholtz and Hall (2005) call her emergent identity.

Secondly, the question involves presuppositions about gender roles. The journalist takes for

granted that part of a woman’s social function relates to looking after the family, and running the

home. How far can Mrs Thatcher answer this question entirely truthfully? An admission that her

domestic responsibilities are sacrificed on the altar of her political ambitions – as, from her

biography, it would appear that they were – might risk her coming over as a pushy, modern,

‘feminist’ type – an identity that would repel many listeners of either sex. As it is, the activities she

shows herself performing – ‘cooking’, ‘shopping’, ‘spending time with the children’ – all check up

with a traditional ‘housewife’ stereotype.

Thatcher the ‘housewife politician’ was an identity which served its turn, as I shall suggest below.

It is also significant that she is depicting a domestic, female identity with which most social classes

can identify – there is no hint of maids or domestic helpers of any kind here.

This fragment, then, briefly illustrates how the creation of an identity for a political personage

involves the collaboration of media and politician; and secondly, that the identity which does emerge

does not necessarily correspond to the self of the politician when she is ‘off camera’.

2. i. Methodologies (a): Bucholtz and Hall’s toolkit

From the wealth of material available, I decided to focus on Mrs Thatcher’s earliest emergence as a

significant political figure, her victory in the Conservative leadership election of 1975. There is a

poignancy about the gender issues emerging in this first major interaction with the press which

seems generated by the specific circumstances connected to a female being elevated to such an

important social role.

Bucholtz and Hall (2005) propose a tool-kit to probe the linguistic construction of identity, and

the current study can be seen as an attempt to follow the analytical paths outlined in their work.

Specifically, it adopts their perspectives on identity as both ‘the social positioning of self and other’

(2005: 586) and ‘a discursive construct that emerges in interaction’. I also use some of the tools they

describe, in particular:

a) overt mention of identity categories and labels;

b) implicatures and presuppositions regarding one’s own or others’ identity position;

c) displayed evaluative […] orientations to ongoing talk;

d) […] interactional negotiation and contestation, […] others’ perceptions and representations

(Bucholtz and Hall 2005: 585)

I shall now briefly outline how the study makes use of these tools, firstly:

2.i.i. Overt mention of identity categories and labels (a); evaluative orientations (c)

My corpus (see appendix) consists of twenty-eight 1975 speeches to various audiences, mainly

Conservative associations. Sifting through the wordlist for overt, gender-related, identity categories

or labels produced the following list: men, women, woman, ladies, wife, housewife.

Such categories, suggest Bucholtz and Hall, are frequently used by speakers to position

themselves or their interlocutors as particular kinds of people. Using evaluative language to signal

approval of, or distance from, certain types of identity, speakers can imply how they would wish

themselves to appear. In the example given (2005: 589), it is by expressing their disapproval of a

boy who became a hijra (a sort of transvestite), that the Indian speakers reinforce their own

heterosexual identities:

“Oh, what has he become? He became a hijra. Why doesn’t he just die! Oh, why doesn’t he just

go away!”

The Appraisal Framework of Martin and White (2005) is a useful tool for examining the

significance of such evaluative language; here, the views that it would be better for the boy to die,

or go away, represent tokens (implied, rather than explicitly expressed evaluations) of negative

JUDGEMENT: propriety, the most weighty type of judgement of human behaviour (Martin and

White 2005: 53).

I have therefore used the Appraisal Framework to analyse relevant gender-references in my

corpus of Thatcher speeches.

2.i.ii. Implicatures and presuppositions regarding one’s own or others’ identity position

The term implicature (Verschueren 1999: 30) refers to what is implied by a speaker:

Q. Have you been able to combine your political life with looking after a family, running a home?

One way of explicating possible implicatures in questions is to provide hypothetical positive and

negative responses. For example, supposing Mrs Thatcher were to give the unequivocal response

“Yes, I have”, here. This is to cast herself as a quite remarkable female – as a superwoman, in fact,

since both social roles can be extremely demanding. There must be some potential incompatibility

here, or the journalist would not have asked the question. But if she responds with an equally plain

“No, I haven’t”, she would risk losing face. Either, then, she is neglecting her political

responsibilities in favour of her domestic role – and, therefore, is hardly a suitable candidate for

higher political office. Or, she is not living up to social expectations of woman as the gender partner

who ‘looks after the family’, and ‘runs the home’. The implicature of the question, then, probes the

notion of the suitability of a woman for political office: one can imagine that the same question put

to a male politician could meet with the terse response: “I leave all that to my wife”.

Presuppositions, on the other hand, refer to what is taken for granted as common ground between

speaker and interlocutor (Verschueren 1999: 27). For example, in a speech at a later date, Mrs

Thatcher stated:

I wish we had more women using the enormous potential that they have. (1986 Nov 15)

The presupposition here is that all women, not just a select few, do indeed have enormous potential,

a suggestion which is likely to curry favour with female voters.

2.i.iii. Interactional negotiation and contestation, […] others’ perceptions and representations

As already mentioned, this study adopts a view of identity as an emergent product of interactive

discourse, recognising the central role of interlocutors in its emergence. Consider the following

interaction involving Mrs Thatcher at a later moment in her political career, the Conservatives’

election victory in 1979:

Journalist: Have you got any thoughts, Mrs. Thatcher, at this moment about Mrs. Pankhurst and your own

mentor in political life—your own father?

Mrs. Thatcher: Well, of course, I just owe almost everything to my own father. I really do. He brought me

up to believe all the things that I do believe and they're just the values on which I've fought the Election.

And it's passionately interesting for me that the things that I learned in a small town, in a very modest

home, are just the things that I believe have won the Election. (1979 May 4)

Mrs Thatcher’s reply completely ignores the reference to the radical feminist Mrs Pankhurst. She

sidesteps, in other words, the journalist’s attempt to pigeon-hole her among those who have struck

significant blows in the cause of female liberation. In this way, although her gender identity might

well be perceived in terms of female liberation, it will not be an easy matter for the journalist to

represent her in these terms, since Mrs Thatcher has gone out of her way to avoid such an inference.

2.ii. i. Methodologies (b): Self-categorization theory

In the above fragment, the journalist’s question invites Mrs Thatcher to self-select between

alternatives; to categorize herself as a particular kind of woman. Two gender stereotypes seem

involved in the question, components of which can be summarised as follows:

Stereotype One: the radical feminist

Mrs Pankhurst – universal sisterhood – chained to

railings in Downing Street –– women’s lib – fire-

breathing oratory - votes for women – etc.

Details of this hypothetical ‘Mrs Pankhurst schema’ are, of course, largely subjective, depending on

how much is known about her in the speech community generally (Cook 1989: 71). For the purposes

of this study, however, it is not necessary to specify content features of stereotypes with any great

exactitude.

From the circumstance that Mrs Pankhurst is mentioned first, we might infer that the second

reference, to the relation of daughterhood, is intended to contrast with this radical stereotype, as

follows:

Stereotype Two: the dutiful daughter

Respectful of male dominance – doesn’t challenge

existing social order – accepts daddy’s word as law –

sees personal fulfilment in terms of child-bearing and

domesticity – etc.

Thatcher’s response indicates her extreme reluctance to see her gender identity characterised in terms

of the first stereotype. She then goes on to specify more precisely the kind of debt she feels she owes

her father; modifying the second stereotype – and with it, perceptions of her emerging gender

identity – as she does so. She is not simply the passive recipient of conventional notions of a

woman’s place in the world; her heritage from her father relates to the transmission of principles,

beliefs, and political notions – all of which have enabled her to become the independent, active

political figure she is today.

Self-Categorization Theory (Turner and Oakes 1989; Oakes et al 1994) offers a useful means of

probing the kinds of identity inferences accessed by questioner and respondent. It will be necessary

to briefly examine female gender stereotypes before seeing how these form implicit backgrounds to

the specific discursive interaction between Mrs Thatcher and journalists.

Finally, the study makes occasional use of material taken from Thatcher’s biography for two main

purposes: to enrich the picture of Mrs Thatcher’s identity delineated by the study of her discourse,

and to provide support for various assertions advanced on the basis of textual evidence.

2.ii.ii. Stereotypes and social categories

Theories of social stereotypes have occupied an important and at times controversial place in social

studies with a cognitive dimension. Some have held the process of stereotyping responsible for social

problems such as racism, which seemed to stem from the fact that individuals in one social group

relate to those in another on the basis of ill-conceived, inaccurate generalisations about them (Oakes

1994: 36). More recent work in cognitive science, however, has recognised that the process of

generalising, of distilling common features from a mass of sense impressions, is a natural and

necessary aspect of cognition itself (Cook 1989: 69). It has also been argued that categorization

provides the ‘fundamental basis of our social orientation towards others’ (Oakes et al 1994: 98).

2.ii.iii. The female stereotype

Studies in the field of Social Psychology have addressed issues related to gender stereotypes, such

as that men tend to be less emotionally sensitive than women (Leyens et al, 2000), or the effect of

such stereotypes in workplace discrimination (O’Brien et al 2008). Helwig (1998) showed that,

despite changes in society that have seen more and more women functioning as head of household,

working outside the home, children continue to stereotype occupations along gender lines.

In our culture there are many female stereotypes in circulation: the sex-goddess, the mother-

figure, the poor driver, and so on. With social changes have come new female stereotypes, such as

the ‘career woman’, who may neglect child-raising responsibilities to climb the employment ladder;

the ‘single parent’, choosing to bring up children without male assistance; the ‘radical feminist’,

who campaigns for left-wing causes, and so on. My study explores the possibility that these

stereotypes form a backdrop to discursive interaction, influencing the emergent identities of

participants.

In the question and answer session between Mrs Thatcher and the journalists, the issue of

Thatcher’s gender identity is probed, as various gender stereotypes are invoked by the questioners.

Of course, without access to the journalists’ subconscious thought-processes, it is impossible to

identify with certainty the particular stereotype they refer to. However, the flexible approach to

stereotypes developed by Turner allows us to see such references as part of the ongoing process of

discursive identity projection that characterises human linguistic interaction. In Oakes’s terms (1994:

94), what is going on from Mrs Thatcher’s perspective is a process of ‘self-categorization’ in which

she develops, consciously or unconsciously, explicitly or by implication, a picture of herself as ‘a

particular kind of woman’.

For example, in one of the early exchanges during the press conference, the question and answer

are as follows:

Q: Mrs. Thatcher what would you like to say to people who are still sceptical about the idea of a lady

leader?

A: Give me a chance! [Laughter.]

By applying Grice’s conversational maxims and pragmatic logic (Verschueren 1999: 32 - 33) to the

journalist’s question, we can explicate the kind of gender-stereotype involved in the question:

- there must be some people who are sceptical about the idea of a lady leader (maxim of

quality);

- they must have some reason for being sceptical (maxim of relevance)

- this must be because they believe that there is some incompatibility between the social roles

associated with femininity and the leadership of a major political party (maxim of relevance)

In the back of the journalist’s mind, therefore, whether or not s/he consciously holds the view, are

common gender stereotypes such as that of female inferiority to males (Dr Johnson’s quip about

women preaching), or that which holds that her proper sphere of influence is the domestic one (a

woman’s place is in the home).

One possibility for Mrs Thatcher, in answering this question, would be to challenge the

presupposition of female inadequacy, along the following lines:

“I don’t know why you should assume that, just because I’m a woman, I’m incapable of leading

a political party…”

To do so, however, would be to establish her identity in the general area of the stereotype of

‘feminist freedom-fighter’, a somewhat threatening gender identity in Britain during the 1970s. Her

humorous response avoids this possible pitfall.

In the analysis that follows, it will be seen that the questions establish a frame in which

negotiation takes place over Mrs Thatcher’s emergent identity, as she aligns herself with the identity

inferences projected, rejects them outright, or goes along with them to a degree.

Before analysing the press-conference interaction, however, it will be of interest to review

occurrences in Thatcher’s general discourse during the period, of overt, gender-related identity

categories and the evaluative patterns associated with these.

3. Overt identity categories in the Thatcher corpus

As indicated above, the overt, gender-related identity categories in my Thatcher corpus were: men,

women, woman, ladies, wife, housewife. I have restricted my comments on the data to the most

salient findings in the terms of this study.

Of 25 instances of the word men, 17 were discarded because they occurred in the phrase ‘men and

women’. Of the remainder, the only one to have evaluative significance is that referring to her idol

and role model (Campbell 2004: 598), Sir Winston Churchill:

I feel at following in the footsteps of great men like our Leader that year, Winston Churchill

(+ J capacity/propriety)

Thatcher thus associates herself with a figure whose achievements won universal admiration (she

‘follows in his footsteps’).

The other references are evaluatively neutral, if we consider only words in the immediate

vicinity of the node:

1. en over 35 wishing to return to work and men over 50+ £34,269,000. Training and ret2. ughter) Our leaders have been different men with different qualities and different st3. it British Wasteland employing 170,000 men will be just one of the NEB's chicks. In4. 't. You were in your remarks referring to men and of course one never quite knows w5. d by an advertisement. Unlike the young men who recently complained to the Indepe6. f its output will be produced with fewer men than before. Otherwise it is axiomatic t7. ttle more if it subsidises the firm to keep men at work than if it pays then unemploym

Comparing this with the results for women gives fewer results for the keyword after discarding

irrelevant instances; but, significantly, we find the term used with positive evaluative shades:

1. oth of which I think are plusses. First, women are tough. On the whole we are tougher than2. o the future because it is only through women that that future can be given life. At a time 3. hope, the kind of vision of which some women are capable can sustain and uplift not just on

(1: +J: tenacity 2: +J: capacity3: +J: propriety; intensified)

In the first two instances here Thatcher’s generalising grammatical choice encodes the

presupposition that all women have these qualities. In the first, indeed, the reference is more

forceful because Thatcher makes the specific claim that women possess greater toughness than their

male counterparts. The second alludes to the woman as life-giver stereotype, while the third, more

specific reference, aligns certain women with extremely positive, quasi-spiritual virtues.

These references to the positive capacities of women show how Thatcher used the term to perform

identity work: to the extent that she herself is, of course, a woman, she casts herself as in possession

of these qualities. At the same time, by praising women in general, she makes political capital by

flattering half of her electorate.

Furthermore, the very qualities singled out in women by Mrs Thatcher for her positive evaluations

are precisely those which befitted a female political leader in the extremely challenging social

context of Britain in the mid-1970s. Tough political decisions were needed; and, while, ‘toughness’

may not be a stereotypically feminine quality, it is not necessarily objectionable to voters, as I have

already argued. By her allusion to women as the gateway to the future, she insinuates that she is able

to give Britain a (positive) future. Finally, she implicitly positions herself among these specially

endowed ‘women of vision’, capable of providing sustenance, hope, and uplift.

The contrast between the two other main overt categories found, husband vs. wife/housewife

presents a similar picture. References to the former are simply to ‘my husband’, while the second

terms perform identity work and also have rhetorical significance. While those to ‘wife’ tend to be

neutral, the figure of the housewife is evoked for political reasons:

1. Perhaps it takes a housewife to see that Britain's national housekeeping is appalling. (t +J: capacity)2. Every housewife knows that Harold Wilson was right that one man's wage increase was another man's price increase.(t +J: capacity)

Here the probity of woman as domestic manager is praised; in the specific social context of galloping

inflation thanks to spiralling wage increases, the notion that a female hand might be more effective is

advanced, via the metaphor equating the national budget with that of a single household – an

equation that was to become a staple of Thatcherist rhetoric.

As Bucholtz and Hall (2005: 594) point out, the use of identity categories of this kind, when

combined with evaluative language, performs identity work, as the speaker aligns herself with

certain identities and wards off others. Mrs Thatcher implicitly associates herself with the positive,

gender-related qualities discussed here, at the same time as she is arguing that the time has come to

adopt female solutions to national problems.

In the interaction at the 1975 press conference there are few overt gender categories mentioned;

however, in one revealing instance Thatcher makes the following explicit comparison between men

and women:

Mrs. Thatcher you said that sex was not the issue and so did the other candidates. What was the issue you

think that put you over the top of a Tory …?

MT: I would like to think it was merit?

Same Questioner: Could you expand on that?

MT: No, it doesn't need expansion. You chaps don't like short answers. Or direct answers. Men like long

rambly, waffly answers

(- App: composition)

The general inference here is that a dramatic social change has just taken place; from the male-

dominated political scene with its windy oratory to a more practical, female modus operandi, a

change which will also be reflected at the rhetorical level.

4. Identity implicatures in Mrs Thatcher’s press conference after nomination as Conservative

Party leader

4.i. Journalists’ Questions

We can now turn to the press conference which followed Thatcher’s selection, on Feb 11 th 1975, as

Conservative Party leader. The following question and answer session took place after Mrs Thatcher

had read out a statement thanking her colleagues and supporters and expressing satisfaction at her

victory. I firstly analyse the opening exchanges, then look at the questions asked in the text as a

whole.

The concentration on gender, in this exchange, is extraordinary. There are some questions which

would be addressed to any political leader, male or female, in an analogous situation. However, the

priorities of the press are clearly revealed by the order in which the questions are asked; those

probing gender, in fact, mostly come in the first part of the dialogue:

1 MT Ladies and Gentlemen, your questions.2 Eng. Male Q Mrs. Thatcher, do you envisage any substantial changes in your Shadow Cabinet?3 MT No, there will be some changes I expect, but it will be a blend of continuity and

change.45

Am. Male Q Mrs. Thatcher what would you like to say to people who are still sceptical about the idea of a lady leader?

6 MT Give me a chance! [Laughter.]7 Eng. Male Q Are you surprised, Mrs. Thatcher, that the male-dominated Parliamentary Party

have elected you?8 MT No, they seem to like ladies. [Laughter.]9 Female Q Mrs. Thatcher, have you spoken to your husband?10 MT Yes, you always ask me that! [Laughter.] You always ask me the personal

questions.11 Same Q What did you tell him and what did he say?121314

MT As I told the chaps in the Grand Committee Room, the tape seems to get there faster than the British Post Office telephone calls. He knew already, he was absolutely thrilled. He’ll be up shortly.

15 Same Q He’ll be home shortly?16 MT Yes17 Same Q And what do you plan for … tonight?18 MT Well, I just have to carry on working.19 Same Q What about him?20 MT Well, he’ll have work to do too.Text sample 1 Thatcher’s election as party leader: opening exchanges

The first question (2) is one that could, and probably would, be addressed to any new party leader,

male or female; but the rest of this dialogue, with a number of different interlocutors, is heavily

gender-focussed. Interestingly, the Margaret Thatcher foundation record the gender and nationality

of the questioners, from which it can be seen that neither gender nor nationality affect the orientation

of Thatcher’s interlocutors; all seem interested in the same topic.

The journalists’ questions are given below, with questions focussing on the topic of gender

indicated in bold type:

1. Mrs. Thatcher what would you like to say to people who are still sceptical about the idea of a lady

leader?

2. Are you surprised, Mrs. Thatcher, that the male-dominated Parliamentary Party have elected you?

3. Mrs. Thatcher, have you spoken to your husband?

4. What did you tell him and what did he say?

5. He’ll be home shortly?

6. And what do you plan for … tonight?

7. What about him?

8. How do you feel Mrs. Thatcher about facing Harold Wilson ?

9. Mrs. Thatcher you said that sex was not the issue and so did the other candidates. What was the

issue you think that put you over the top of a Tory …?

10. Could you expand on that?

11. Mrs. Thatcher, do you intend to put any other women in your Shadow Cabinet?

12. Mrs. Thatcher do you view your victory today as a victory for Margaret Thatcher alone or do you

view it as well as a victory for women in Britain?

13. Mrs Thatcher have you had any message from the Queen?

14. Mrs. Thatcher do you regard yourself as a, as a Mrs. Gandhi?

15. Mrs. Thatcher, what is your opinion of Mr. Whitelaw ?

16. You were carrying a bouquet of flowers when you came into Tory Central Office, can you tell us

who gave them?

17. What quality would you most like the Tory Party displaying under your leadership?

18. What sort of philosophical quality?

19. For what?

20. How long do you think it will be before you fight an election on this …

21. May I ask you … [words inaudible] Would you seek a coalition, or would you seek an election or would

you seek … [words inaudible]

22. Mrs Thatcher do you [words inaudible] … if you will be able to attract finance to the Conservative

Party, which I understand is short of money?

23. Mrs Thatcher, can you see yourself on the same platform as Harold Wilson during the referendum

campaign?

24. What do you see as the future role of the Centre for Policy Studies?

25. Mrs Thatcher do you have anything in particular to working class Tory … [words inaudible]

26. Mrs Thatcher, how do you … [words inaudible] … your lovely … [Lovely Chelsea home]?

27. You said that the Labour Government has a very large majority in practice. Does this mean that you

don’t expect to be able to get a decisive Parliamentary defeat on the Labour Party?

28. And you don’t think the chances of … [words inaudible] … the total anti-government to come into the

lobbies … [words inaudible] … is particularly great in the foreseeable future?

29. Is it your view that … [words inaudible] … Mr Powell … [words inaudible] … might be good for the

Conservative Party?

30. Mrs Thatcher, do you have any view on Government involvement in off-shore petroleum searching?

Figure 3 Journalists’ questions to Thatcher (inaudible questions have been omitted)

Whilst some of these questions (e.g. 1, 2, 11) are clearly focused on the issue of gender, it may be

objected that others are less so. Taken out of context, a question such as (8) would seem to be

unrelated to the question:

How do you feel, Mrs. Thatcher, about facing Harold Wilson ?

Here, however, given that several other questions do make explicit reference to gender, it is possible

to draw the inference that the questioner means to discursively oppose Mrs Thatcher (feeble,

domestic-bound, female) to (mighty, male, formidable rhetorician) Harold Wilson. That some such

inference is indeed intended can be hypothesised, if not conclusively asserted, by considering that the

same question, put to any male politician, would appear meaningless.

A significant proportion of questions, then, have some relation to Mrs Thatcher’s gender. The

figure is about 16/30 (53%), the precise figure depending on whether questions that involve the

interpretation of inferences are included or not. Even if such borderline cases are omitted, however,

the figure is still unusually high for a press conference of this kind.

We can now explore the identity inferences of these questions, asking what kind of woman the

questioners are positioning Mrs Thatcher as; the kind of discursive frame they project. The gender-

related identity inferences seem to be the following:

It is unusual for a female to run a political party (1,2)

A ‘normal’ woman refers important news to her husband, whose reaction is of great significance

(3,4,)

The husband’s presence on important occasions is important for a wife (5)

A wife and her husband will naturally celebrate an important event in some special way (6)

A husband’s activities are of great interest to a wife, even when she herself has some special reason

for personal celebration (7)

Women are fond of flowers (16)

Women are extremely attached to their homes (26)

Some of the journalists project a husband’s role in his wife’s affairs as of central importance to her; a

subordinate identity is thus projected for females. Failure to inform one’s husband of momentous

tidings, or to demonstrate a lack of interest in his plans for the evening, may be seen as neglect of

‘wifely duty’. Even when, as in this case, a female attains a significant social position, she is still cast

as referring everything to her husband.

Other questions seem to position Mrs Thatcher as a kind of ‘soap opera celebrity’ type. The

journalist in (6) is coyly angling for some hint of romance, a perspective taken up in (16), where the

question about the donor of the flowers hints at the romantic connotations of such gifts. The time-

honoured connections between femininity and flora are drawn out in these exchanges, while her

attachment to her home (26) positions her, once more, as a ‘traditional, housewife type’.

In terms of self-categorization theory, distinctions are evoked between different types of female so

that Mrs Thatcher will self-select the categories to which she sees herself as belonging. The theory

works in terms of the salience of certain identity features in contrast with others (Oakes et al, 1994:

45). It is obvious, for instance, that for the journalists it is extremely salient that Mrs Thatcher is a

woman rather than a man, and we could interpret certain questions, such as those about the ‘flowers’

and the ‘lovely home’, as doing no more than marking this distinction. Others go further and try to

define more specifically what ‘kind of woman’ she is, by inviting her to select between the

categories of traditional woman vs. feminist standard-bearer (11, 12). The question about Mrs

Ghandi, on the other hand, accepts that Mrs Thatcher is now, by virtue of her political success, a

rightful member of the category ‘women who have achieved political success’, and tries to find out

what kind of successful political woman she sees herself as.

From this it can be seen that the role of the press in creating Mrs Thatcher’s mediated identity is

an extremely proactive one, since their questions both establish that her gender identity will be a key

focus of the interaction, and at the same time give her a series of bipolar options that tend to

constrain the range of possible identities she can construct by her answers.

4.ii. Mrs Thatcher’s answers

Mrs Thatcher, first of all, explicitly rejects any suggestion that her victory is a blow struck in the

battle for female liberation:

Mrs. Thatcher do you view your victory today as a victory for Margaret Thatcher alone or do you view it

as well as a victory for women in Britain?

Neither. No one can win alone. Ever. You can only win by having a lot of people thinking and working the

way you do. It’s not a victory for Margaret Thatcher, it’s not a victory for women. It is a victory for

someone in politics.

Thatcher’s answer here seems to dodge the question, which sets up the following opposition:

A victory for Margaret

Thatcher alone

versus A victory for women in Britain

The question probes the degree of Thatcher’s identification with the general cause of female

liberation. Thatcher’s answer interprets the word ‘alone’ in another sense, creating the following

opposition:

A victory for Margaret

Thatcher alone

versus A victory for lots of people working

for a common result

Her answer thus plays down the aspect of gender altogether, characterising the result instead as ‘a

victory for someone in politics’. This understating of gender finds grammatical enactment in her use

of the gender-neutral pronoun ‘someone’. Furthermore, by her explicit denial (‘it’s not a victory for

women’) she does seem to reject outright the identity of feminist fighter which other successful

political women, such as Benazir Bhutto (BBC 2003), have encouraged to a degree.

In the same vein, her jocular responses to questions (1) and (2) equally play down the feminist

inference. In (2), indeed, she permits the inference that it is precisely her sex appeal that ensured her

selection:

Are you surprised, Mrs. Thatcher, that the male-dominated Parliamentary Party have elected you?

No, they seem to like ladies. [Laughter.]

The questioner’s inference is that, in a male-dominated party, misogynistic attitudes to women will

prevail. Thatcher’s answer casts her identity as that of a sexually desirable female rather than, for

example, someone whose exceptional natural qualities have prevailed over gender preconceptions.

Asked whether she will include other women in her cabinet, Mrs Thatcher again avoids the issue:

I have not yet made any decisions about the Shadow Cabinet yet, with two exceptions. I am pledged to

offer Mr. Heath a place if he wishes to have it, and also I hope that former, that … er, the people who

contested in the second round who are members of Shadow Cabinet will continue to be members of

Shadow Cabinet.

The people in question here are all male. Once more, then, she refuses to align herself with any kind

of feminist identity.

Other identity inferences are entertained to a degree. She is happy to devote time to the question

of the gift of flowers, attachment to which is a stereotypical feature of the woman versus man social

category. The question seems to invite the following contrasting identity inferences:

Typical woman who loves being

given flowers

versus A female with a different (more

modern?) attitude to such things

After an initial brief response, she volunteers the following information:

They were, they were what you call potted plants, a mixture of potted plants, they last longer than cut

flowers.

Thatcher here adds a detail that further aligns her with housewives, who are typically more

knowledgeable about such matters than men.

The question of Mrs Thatcher’s husband and his reactions to the news is raised by the press

straight away (questions 3,4,5,6,7); again, an indication of the high priority such considerations had

for the media. The relevant distinction here would seem to be the following:

Traditional female who gives great

importance to husband’s opinions

and presence on important occasions

versus

Liberated woman making her own

way in the world on equal footing

with her man

Mrs Thatcher’s response initially seems to challenge the relevance of such a question to the current

situation:

Yes, you always ask me that! [Laughter.] You always ask me the personal questions.

‘Personal’ questions contrast, perhaps, with more important ‘political’ ones – categories, these,

which also seem to divide on gender lines, with the feminine sphere more stereotypically connected

with the former, and the masculine with the latter. Despite Thatcher’s apparent desire to quibble with

the questioner, however, she does not refuse to collaborate, but allows an identity to emerge which

self-categorizes, at least initially, more with the former than the latter option. Her husband’s

emotional response is communicated, and his imminent arrival signalled:

As I told the chaps in the Grand Committee Room, the tape seems to get there faster than the British Post

Office telephone calls. He knew already, he was absolutely thrilled. He'll be up shortly.

However, the inference that husband and wife wish to mark this important occasion in some special

way is ruled out, with Thatcher indicating, rather shortly, that the couple will spend the evening

‘working’. The emergent identity is not one of female subordination, since Thatcher’s ‘work’ will

clearly not be any traditional female activity of the housekeeping sort.

Finally, one journalist asks Mrs Thatcher if she regards herself as a ‘Mrs Gandhi’; making, that is,

a named reference for purposes of comparison. It is impossible to say with certainty in what respect

the journalist was seeking to compare the two politicians, but the question and answer are revealing

nevertheless, thanks to Thatcher’s unequivocal answer:

Mrs. Thatcher do you regard yourself as a, as a Mrs. Gandhi?

No. I regard myself as Margaret Thatcher

Here then, the identity category offered Mrs Thatcher seem probes for a possible role model, as

follows:

Mrs Ghandi versus Other successful female politicians

From Mrs Thatcher’s refusal to entertain comparison with one of the most successful female

politicians in history, and from the circumstance of her opposing her own name to Gandhi’s in this

matter-of-fact way, we can infer the high esteem she felt for her own identity – however we wish to

define it - as an individual (female) involved in politics. It is also noteworthy that she avoids a

straightforward parallel response (“I regard myself as Mrs Thatcher”), substituting her first name for

the titular reference with its domestic, traditional associations.

5. Conclusion

With hindsight, the question of Mrs Thatcher’s gender appears relatively trivial. The Conservative

party, under her leadership, was about to embark on a radical programme of right-of-centre reforms.

The following decade was to see the large-scale privatisation of nationalised industries, the miners’

and civil servants’ strikes, union law reform, the sale of council houses and the so-called ‘poll tax’.

From this perspective, the apparent insistence during the 1975 press conference on Thatcher’s

femininity appears somewhat absurd. It is worth noting, in fact, that the question of gender was not

mentioned at all by Glyn Mathias, who interviewed her for ITN following the Conservatives’ next

electoral victory, in 1983. It would appear that the media representatives’ major preoccupation, on

this earlier occasion, was with the ‘human interest angle’ (Fowler 1991: 15, Reah 1998: 3).

We have seen that the emergent identity of Mrs Thatcher on this important discursive occasion is

essentially the result of collaboration between her and the press. Neither party is entirely neutral or

disinterested. The journalists are clearly trying to position Mrs Thatcher according to the kind of

preconceived journalistic frames they operate within, while Mrs Thatcher is constrained by the ever-

present political necessity to come over well to electors. The media seem obsessed with the question

of gender, since the simple fact of a female victory in the Conservative leadership election scores

high on Galtung and Ruge’s ‘newsworthiness criteria’ (Fowler 1991: 13).

Thatcher’s general strategy is to play along with inferences that construct a fairly traditional

gender identity – she loves flowers, loves her Chelsea home, is attentive to her husband’s reactions,

and is not unwilling to be considered, to a degree, as a sex object. More modern identities are

admitted, such as having a social role independent of her husband, though I have suggested these are

played down for fear of alienating public sympathy. Any hints of a feminist political orientation are

firmly warded off, perhaps for the same reason. Finally, the proclamation ‘I regard myself as

Margaret Thatcher’ seems to assert the inviolability of a subjective self along the lines described by

Connolly (1991: 64, above). Details of that self are not provided; the inference is that journalists, and

voters alike, will have to ‘wait and see’.

I have argued that what we perceive as the ‘selves’ of important public figures are crucially

affected by two factors: firstly the skewing effects of mediation, as journalists seek to make identity

inferences on the basis of pre-conceived narrative ‘frames’, and secondly, by the protagonist’s own

calculations as to how voter-friendly any specific identity inference may be. These factors mean that

politicians’ identities can seldom if ever correspond with their true selves, if any such entity is

allowed to exist.

By means of tools from Bucholtz and Hall’s kit, and with the aid of Self-Categorization Theory,

we have explored the processes involved in the discursive formation of Mrs Thatcher’s gender

identity at a particularly salient point in her career.

By leaning more to the housewife stereotype than to that of the radical feminist, she eventually

came to embody her own political doctrines, which saw the individual household as a convenient

metaphor for the nation as a whole. The female virtues associated with the housewife - common-

sense, good housekeeping, balancing the books – resonated with voters, who were ready to receive

her message, in an economy where public spending was out of control. Thatcher’s public identity,

then, was not just a sort of mediated version of her private self; it was, rather, an acute example of

skilful image creation. The years of power were gradually to witness the emergence of discursive

identities with less conventional, more authoritarian gender overtones: the ‘iron lady’, and even,

thanks to her infamous comment ‘we are a grandmother’, the Queen’s rival. However, this more

traditional identity, I would suggest, is the least threatening guise in which a woman could have

arrived at the threshold of political power in Britain in 1975.

References

Antaki, Charles and Widdicombe, Sue (eds) 1998. Identities in talk. London, Thousand Oaks, New

Delhi: Sage.

Althusser, L. 1994. Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses. In: S. Žižek (ed.). Mapping Ideology. London: Verso.

Atkinson, Max 1984. Our masters’ voices. London and New York: Methuen

Barthes, R. 1972. Mythologies. London: Cape.

Bucholtz, Mary & Hall, Kira 2005. Identity and interaction: a sociocultural linguistic approach. In

Discourse Studies 7 (4-5). London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage.

Campbell, John 2004. Margaret Thatcher. London: Pimlico.

Charteris-Black, Jonathan 2005. Politicians and rhetoric: the persuasive power of metaphor.

Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave-MacMillan.

Chilton, Paul 2004. Analyzing political discourse: theory and practise. London and New York:

Routledge.

Chilton, Paul & Schäffner, Christina (eds) 2002. Politics as text and talk: analytic approaches to

political discourse. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

Connolly, W. 1991. Identity/Difference: democratic negotiations of political paradox. New York:

Cornell University Press.

Cook, Guy 1989. Discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fairclough, Norman 1992. Discourse and social change. Cambridge: Polity.

Fairclough, Norman 2000. New Labour, new language. London: Routledge.

Fairclough, Norman & Wodak, Ruth 1997. Critical discourse analysis. In Discourse studies: a multi-

disciplinary introduction. Vol. I. Discourse as Structure and Process. Van Dijk, Teun (ed) London:

Sage.

Fowler, Roger 1991. Language in the News. London: Routledge.

Halmari, Helena & Virtanen, Tuija (eds) 2005. Persuasion across genres: a linguistic approach.

London: John Benjamins.

Helwig, A. 1998. Gender-role stereotyping: testing theory with a longitudinal sample. Sex Roles: A

Journal of Research: March 1998. Heidelberg: Springer.

Leyens, Jacques-Philippe, Désert, Michel, Croizet, Jean-Claude, Darcis, Catherine 2000. Stereotype

Threat: Are Lower Status and History of Stigmatization Preconditions of Stereotype Threat?

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 26: 10, 1189-1199.

Maleševic, Siniša 2003. Researching social and ethnic identity: a sceptical view. Journal of Language

and Politics 2:2: 265–287. London: John Benjamins.

Martin, James R. & White, Peter R.R. 2005. The language of evaluation: appraisal in English.

Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Oakes, Penelope J., Haslam, Alexander, Turner, John C. Stereotyping and social reality. Oxford:

Blackwell.

O’Brien, Laurie, T., Kinias, Zoe, Major, Brenda 2008. How status and stereotypes impact attributions to

discrimination: the stereotype-asymmetry hypothesis. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology;

44: 2, 405-412

Oktar, Lütfiye 2001. The ideological organization of representational processes in the presentation of us

and them. Discourse and Society Vol 12 (3): 313-346.

Reah, Danuta 1998. The language of newspapers. London and New York: Routledge.

Sacks, Harvey 1992. Lectures on Conversation, Volumes I and II. Oxford: Blackwell.

Turner, J.C. and Oakes, P.J. 1989. Self-categorization theory and social influence. In Paulus, P.B. (ed)

The psychology of group influence. Hillsdale, MJ: Erlbaum.

Turner, J.C., Hogg, M.A. et al. 1987. Rediscovering the social group: a self-categorization theory.

Oxford ; New York : Blackwell.

Verschueren, Jef 1999. Understanding Pragmatics. New York: Arnold.

Widdicombe, Sue 1998. Identity as an analysts’ and a participants’ resource. In Antaki, C. &

Widdicombe, S. (eds) Identities in talk. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage.

WEBLIOGRAPHY

BBC 2003. Benazir Bhutto. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/3164393.stm Last

accessed:17/04/08

Lakoff, George 2003. Framing the issues.

http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/10/27_lakoff.shtml Last accessed: 14/02/08.

Pew Research Center 2008. http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=1204 Last accessed:

17/04/08

Thatcher 06/02/1960: interview http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?

docid=101058 Last accessed: 24/05/08.

Thatcher 11/02/1975: Nomination as Conservative Party leader.

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=102487 Last accessed:

14/02/08.

Thatcher 04/05/1979: press conference

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=104078 Last accessed:

14/02/08.

APPENDIX

Corpus of Thatcher 1975 Speeches

Online at the Margaret Thatcher Foundation: http://www.margaretthatcher.org/

Last accessed 01/05/2008

Speech to Conservative Group for Europe 1975 Apr 16 Speech to Conservative Party Conference 1975 Oct 10 Speech to Conservative Trade Unionists Conference 1975 Mar 1Speech to Conservative Women's Conference 1975 May 21Speech to Croydon Conservatives 1975 Jul 5Speech to Federation of Conservative Students 1975 Jul 12Speech to Finchley Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women 1975 Nov 27Speech to Federation of Conservative Students Conference 1975 Mar 24Speech to Finchley Conservatives 1975 Apr 17Speech to Finchley Conservatives (Association AGM) 1975 Mar 10Speech to Helensburgh Conservative rally 1975 Apr 18Speech to Hendon North Conservatives 1975 Aug 15Speech to Institute of Directors 1975 Jun 6Speech to Institute of Practitioners in Advertising 1975 Mar 25Speech to London University Conservative Association 1975 Mar 7Speech to National Union ("No Easy Options") 1975 Jun 11Speech to Norfolk Conservatives 1975 Nov 7Speech to Scottish Conference Conference 1975 May 17Speech to Shipley Conservatives 1975 Jun 28Speech to Suffolk Conservatives 1975 Nov 8Speech to the Guild of Master Craftsmen 1975 Dec 12Speech to the Industrial Society 1975 Jul 7Speech to the Institute of Socio-Economic Studies 1975 Sep 15Speech to the National Press Club 1975 Sep 19Speech to Welsh Conservative Party Conference 1975 Jun 14Speech to West Dorset Conservatives 1975 Feb 28Speech to West Midlands Conservatives 1975 Oct 31TV Interview for Scottish TV 1975 Feb 21