The Guardian newspaper, which pretends to be ‘progressive’ and ‘liberal’ on social issues, disgracefully included Margaret Thatcher in its article on the “100 most inspiring women” to “celebrate” international women’s day! This insults women and anyone who cares about women’s or workers’ rights everywhere.
Thatcher led the neoliberal attack against the trade union rights women and men had won, and the gains we have made as a result of working class struggle – the NHS, public services, etc.
It would have been virtually impossible for the Ford workers celebrated in “Made in Dagenham”, whose strike helped win the equal pay act, to organise industrial action under the trade union laws Thatcher brought in and which the current Tory-Liberal government are talking about extending.
International women’s day belongs to the working class movement and to the women and men fighting today in the Middle East, in Wisconsin, Greece, Britain and around the world to change the unequal society we live in for good, not to middle class journalists.
