Iron Lady

See also: iron lady

English

Proper noun

the Iron Lady

1. A nickname given to various female leaders, indicating that they are strong-willed and unyielding.
   • 2003, Nancy Amoury Combs, “International Decisions: Prosecutor v. Plavsic”, in American Journal of International Law, volume 97, page 929:

     Known as the "Serbian Iron Lady" as a result of her hard-line nationalism and rabidly anti-Muslim views, Plavsic was a close ally of Radovan Karadzic.

   • 2008, Elinor Burkett, Golda Meir: The Iron Lady of the Middle East, →ISBN:

     (see title)

   • 2016, Eric Stover, Victor Peskin, Alexa Koenig, Hiding in Plain Sight: The Pursuit of War Criminals from Nuremberg, →ISBN, page 322:

     Like her husband, Simone—once called the Iron Lady and known for her fiery speeches—faced four counts of crimes against humanity for being an indirect co-perpetrator in murder, rape, and other sexual violence, as well as a range of other inhumane acts.

   1. (especially) Margaret Thatcher.
      • 2003, David Powell, Tony Benn New Edition, →ISBN, page 159:

        On the lawn of the White House, with the Iron Lady beside him, Reagan may have pledged that Britain and the USA would 'stand side by side' in defending freedom -- just so long as it was on US terms.

      • 2013, Oscar Guardiola-Rivera, Story of a Death Foretold: The Coup Against Salvador Allende, 11 September 1973, →ISBN, page 376:

        On 16 October 1998, twenty-five years after he left the presidential palace in Santiago to tell the world the story of the Chilean Revolution, Joan Garcés sent to the Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón a petition asking for the urgent questioning of General Augusto Pinochet, who was preparing to leave London after a back operation and afternoon tea with his admirer, ex-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Over tea and scones, an older Pinochet told the Iron Lady that opinion polls predicted that Chile could have its first socialist president since 1973.

      • 2013, Jonathan Aitken, Margaret Thatcher: Power and Personality, →ISBN, page 372:

        Using the metaphor of metalurgy he had deployed in the epic parliamentary debate at the start of the war, he rose at Prime Minister's Questions on 17 June to remind the House how he had predicted that the Falklands crisis should determine what metal the Iron Lady was made of.

      • 2017, Margaret Thatcher: The Iron Lady, →ISBN:

        In March 1981, she was put to the test for the first time: Bobby Sands (1954-1981), an Irish republican prisoner, and his comrades began a hunger strike in order to obtain the status of political prisoners, thus showing their desire to receive better treatment. But the Iron Lady remained unmoved and ignored their request.

2. The iron maiden at Nuremberg.
   • 1918, The Sketch - Volume 102, page 232:

     As Mrs. Degen stoutly declared, those seeking German embraces would do well to remember the Iron Lady of Nuremberg.

   • 1922, The Cosmopolitan - Volume 72, page 21:

     The enterprising young reporter jubilantly began constructing a substantial iron net on the frail foundation of circumstantial evidence and that net began to close as tight as the Iron Lady of Nuremburg^[sic] round Dean Cardigan.

   • 1993, Henry Colyton, Occasion, chance and change: a memoir 1902-1946, pages 36–37:

     Then it was arranged that I should do a short tour of the unspoilt medieval towns of northern Bavaria – Bamberg, Rothenburg and Nuremberg where I saw the original machine of torture, the 'Iron Lady', with its horrific spikes all pointing inwards from the metal shell.

   • 2008, Ginger Reid-Parker, D. H. Reid, Stepping Stones to Injustice, →ISBN, page 438:

     The Iron Lady has iron spikes and I don't need holes for air-conditioning my body.