In their internal document “British Perspectives 1977” (cited in Crick, 1986, page 89), the Militant Tendency (forerunner to the Socialist Party) defined the feminist movement as “petty-bourgeois-dominated” and subject to “hysteria”.

Cartoonist Alan Hardman’s depictions of Margaret Thatcher for the Militant’s publications reflected a deep-seated political problem with the organisation – their dismissal of feminism, and their promotion of and pandering to sexism and misogyny amongst the working class.

Thatcher was a ruling class fighter, and socialist women then and now should feel no affinity towards her. But the fact that she was a woman was used by Militant to present sexist and misogynistic caricatures which were a reactionary substitute for decent class analysis and class opposition.

The image of Thatcher as an over-sized, flabby action heroine in a bikini presents the idea of her disgusting femininity. While the hook-nosed and fanged Thatcher with an axe shows her (quite explicitly given the caption) as a demented, hysterical woman. Both cartoons primarily denigrate Thatcher as an inadequate woman, rather than satirically mock her as a political leader for the ruling class. The two more recent cartoons below, from the Socialist Party press in 2007, reverberate Militant’s past: with babies Blair and Brown feeding off Thatcher’s breasts; she is revealed as a perversion of a reproductive female and as a predatory and repulsive she-wolf/woman. Blair and Brown get off lightly.

For more, see my previous posts Towards an honest history: the case of the Militant Tendency and Further excavation of the Militant Tendency.