ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 focuses on the archetypal “exceptional woman,” Margaret Thatcher, who is synonymous in the cultural imaginary with her statement “There is no such thing as society.” Via the case study of Thatcher – the limit case of a powerful, bellicose female leader and arch-individualist – the chapter examines the extent to which our culture struggles to permit a woman to occupy the role of leader in ways that have intimately to do with its difficulty in perceiving woman as individual selves more generally. In order to be allowed to lead the Conservative Party and the country, Thatcher had to embody contradictory feminine archetypes of mother/wife and exceptional warrior. The chapter also examines how popular cultural products – songs, short stories, and cartoons – produced about Thatcher reveal a visceral sadism and pervasive misogyny, reminiscent of the language and imagery of witch-burning, that far exceed a rational left-wing critique of a right-wing leader.
