Let’s just hope that we’re going to give a little more credit to the likes of Clark, Shipley and Richardson. And ourselves. Because you don’t have to be a bra-burning feminist to find that there’s nothing clever about treating intelligence like a turn off.

Gosh Craig. Ruth Richardson, Jenny Shipley and intelligence? Now there's a couple of oxymoronic concepts, wouldn't you say?

I see a difference between cleverness and intelligence. Intelligence requires a breadth of understanding that neither Richardson nor Shipley demonstrated.

Helen Clark on the other hand has shown herself to be a woman with an encompassing intelligence, a broad grasp of the issues and clearly one of the world's most effective politicians - regardless of gender - and she's done it for three terms by promoting interests rather than destroying some and elevating others. And if sometimes this has meant that one group or another loses out - that's what happens when you're committed to working with everyone.

She works with all sections of society, rebuilding what people like Richardson and Shipley destroyed - restoring apprenticeships, strengthening industry training, reducing unemployment, restoring literacy, improving housing, restoring benefit and minimum wage levels, abolishing discrimination against young people, closing gaps, working with Maori on settlements, helping working parents, giving us back decent transport systems, improving our health and our health system - all that boring stuff - while also being someone to be proud of in international fora - always having done her homework and rising above the appalling sexist crap that is thrown at her constantly.

Thatcher, Richardson and Shipley, while probably also having to rise above sexist crap, had, on the other hand, only one agenda - the pure Friedman/Hayek one aimed solely to increase the profits of a few with the result of widening the gap between rich and poor.

Being women was hardly the point. Being self-interested, self-centred capitalists was what it was about for them.

Going to war and rejecting diplomacy (Thatcher in the Falklands), putting whole regions on the dole (the British miners), was nothing to be proud of.

Richardson's Mother of all Budgets victimised the aged, the poor, the sick and the damaged. Turning language on its head, as these radical economic libertarians do, she called it a 'moral' document. It helped the rich to the state's goodies by putting the boot into the poor and vulnerable. It was nothing to be proud of.

In the end, in my opinion, intelligence is about what you do.

Gosh Craig. Ruth Richardson, Jenny Shipley and intelligence? Now there's a couple of oxymoronic concepts, wouldn't you say?

I wouldn't say -- then again, I don't operate on the assumption that everyone whose politics I disagree with (and that would include Helen Clark) are stupid. Discuss.

I think I just did.

Not really, I do get that, in your book, Ruth Richardson and Jenny Shipley are the Brides of Dracula and nothing I say would shift you one micron from that view. Not exactly fair enough, but I'm not going to waste any time or energy trying to shift an unmovable object either.

But my point (and I did have one), is that it's rather pathetic that the strategy for 'humanising' a female politicians is to turn her into some ankle-flashing coquette. I'm not entirely sure what that says about supposedly enlightened attitudes towards women in politics, or female sexuality in general, but it's nothing flattering in my view. Sure, there's a certain degree of dramatic licence available to biopics, but the reality was dramatic enough without popping in Sharon Stone impersonations and a frankly bizarre (and entirely ficticious) flirtation with Ted Heath.

The same production company has been commissioned to produce a companion piece about her last year in office, starring the wonderful Lindsay Duncan and based on the fine biography by John Campbell (not that one). Let's hope this one takes a marginally more serious tack.

I agree with your ankle-flashing points.

I just think that Jenny Shipley is charming and quite bright and Maggie Thatcher and Ruth Richardson are clever and also superficial but not particularly intelligent or insightful - or even ethical - and I suppose that my inherent labour bias makes me squirm at Helen Clark having to share the stage with a couple of people I regard as rather second rate human beings just because they share a gender.

I don't remember the Brides of Dracula bit - did I really say that? Not bad for a girl!

But really Craig - if you have new and enlightening information about these luminaries - please share!

It's like you can have whatever version you want of a person these days - guess that's postmodernism for you, every version is valid for someone.

I agree that it's a cheap version of Maggie, designed to titillate the audience rather than shine a light on something more substantial. It gets very tedious, our Helen being judged on looks and femininity rather than her performance as PM, too. I'd really hoped we'd all advanced somewhat further in our thinking than that. I think the more neanderthal among us really do still find intelligence scary, especially in women.

Looking forward to seeing what Lindsay Duncan does with the role - excellent actor.

Cheers! Will we see it on tv or film?

Cheers! Will we see it on tv or film?

If TVNZ runs true to form, neither iteration of Thatcher will be deemed worthy of a prime time slot, if they're shown at all. I'm still seriously pissed off with the truly excellent BBC adaptation of Bleak House (and I'm saying that as someone who is NOT a big Dickens fan) being consigned to the Sunday night graveyard.

It gets very tedious, our Helen being judged on looks and femininity rather than her performance as PM, too.

After nine years, I still cringe at the memory of a leader's debate between Shipley and Clark where Jane Bowron consented to give her profound analysis of their respective couture and maquillage. I think that was the point where my dislike of Bowron hardened into a poisonous contempt. OTOH, I'm still breathless at this Washington Post analysis of the sociosexual politics of Condi Rice wearing wearing boots on a visit to Germany.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived at the Wiesbaden Army Airfield on Wednesday dressed all in black. She was wearing a black skirt that hit just above the knee, and it was topped with a black coat that fell to mid-calf. The coat, with its seven gold buttons running down the front and its band collar, called to mind a Marine's dress uniform or the "save humanity" ensemble worn by Keanu Reeves in "The Matrix."

As Rice walked out to greet the troops, the coat blew open in a rather swashbuckling way to reveal the top of a pair of knee-high boots. The boots had a high, slender heel that is not particularly practical. But it is a popular silhouette because it tends to elongate and flatter the leg. In short, the boots are sexy.

[...] Rice's coat and boots speak of sex and power -- such a volatile combination, and one that in political circles rarely leads to anything but scandal. When looking at the image of Rice in Wiesbaden, the mind searches for ways to put it all into context. It turns to fiction, to caricature. To shadowy daydreams. Dominatrix! It is as though sex and power can only co-exist in a fantasy. When a woman combines them in the real world, stubborn stereotypes have her power devolving into a form that is purely sexual.

I don't know about you, but I wonder if Secretary Rice just thought 'OK, comfortable dress, Germany in February is going to be cold so pack a coat and I guess these boots match'.

I'm gobsmacked! This is a fight I thought we'd won hands-down in the 70s. Now pink for girls is in with a vengeance, marriage with all the frills is back and obviously the media's interest in what women wear has moved beyond the descriptive to the psycho-babbular (I just made that word up). Thanks for that Craig - quite depressing really!