iron lady

iron lady (plural iron ladies)

1. A strong-willed and unrelenting female leader.
   • 2002 October, AM Lämsä, T Tiensuu, “Representations of the woman leader in Finnish business media articles”, in Business Ethics: A European Review:

     On the one hand, the patriarchal discourse constructs the identity of 'an iron lady' for the successful woman leader.

   • 2007, Laura Sjoberg, Caron E. Gentry, Mothers, Monsters, Whores: Women's Violence in Global Politics, →ISBN, page 156:

     Stories about Biljana Plavsic also contain the monster narrative. Emphasis on her toughness and her nickname 'iron lady' hint at a monster characterization, but these images are much more obvious in the emphasis on the view that Plavsic is lacking in mental balance.

   • 2009, David P Forsythe, Encyclopedia of Human Rights - Volume 1, →ISBN, page 485:

     Del Ponte only takes the blame for the last incident, acknowledging that she realized too late that she had been played by the “iron lady” from Republica Srpska.

2. Alternative form of iron maiden
   • 1908, James Henry Snowden, A Summer Across the Sea, page 80:

     It tried one's nerves to look on the rack that had pulled men to pieces, on the "iron lady" which opened in front and then embraced and crushed her victim with sharp spikes, and on the sword that had cut off hundreds of heads.

   • 1952, Otto C. Lightner, Pearl Ann Reeder, Hobbies - Volume 57, Issues 1-8, page 40:

     In a castle dungeon in Nuremberg, Germany is a huge, medieval "iron lady" torture device. Shaped like a woman, the iron lady opens to reveal huge spikes, once used for torture and death.

   • 2011, F.D. Land, Nightmares - Book 5, →ISBN, page 171:

     But the best torture of all was the iron lady; it was a box in the shape of a lady sitting down.

3. (archaic) A sewing machine.
   • 1854, Charles Dickens, Household Words - Volume 8, page 576:

     In the delicate parts of work -- in those mysteries known to the erudite as flounces, gussets, frills, and tucks -- in the learned complications of the herringbone system, and the homely art of darning -- we imagine that the iron lady is not proficient.

   • 1854, Country Gentleman - Volume 3, page 206:

     But, the iron lady's needle is not like the instrument of a flesh and blood seamstress.

   • 2014, Taylor, American Geisha, →ISBN, page 22:

     Not only thin materials, but Johnny's jeans and corduroys, which the old iron lady used to chew up and swallow and then just moan and die on.