Queen hailed for busting through sexist attitudes of 1950s Britain as young woman

Queen Elizabeth II broke through the sexist attitudes of the 1950s, when she came to the throne, to become “matriarch” of the nation, Harriet Harman has said. Ms Harman, who has the title Mother of the House as the longest-serving female MP, said that she marvelled at the monarch’s ability to “make her way as a woman in a man’s world”. Paying tribute to Her Majesty in the House of Commons, the former Labour deputy leader said that the Queen had fulfilled her duties “flawlessly” as “a woman starting her reign in what was emphatically then a man’s world”. Borrowing a phrase from former PM Tony Blair, she said: “She was the matriarch of the nation, a matriarch for us on the world stage and a matriarch too at home in her own family.” Ms Harman revealed how the Queen’s thoughtfulness had softened the blow when Blair sacked her as social security secretary and the first-ever minister for women in 1998.