title: Defining the Conservative Woman: Margaret Thatcher, Politics, and Gender
abstract: When Margaret Thatcher won the election for Prime Minister of Great Britain in 1979, she entered unchartered territory. Not only was she the first Conservative Prime Minister in several terms, she was the first female Prime Minister and, as such, became the subject of public scrutiny. This thesis seeks to understand how Thatcher’s gender and her traditional values shaped the decisions that she made in three key areas of her political life: her first election for Prime Minister, the race riots of