A Dragon Lady is usually a stereotype of East Asian women as strong, deceitful, domineering or mysterious. The term's origin and usage is Western, not Chinese. Inspired by the characters played by actress Anna May Wong, the term was coined from the villain in the comic strip Terry and the Pirates. The term has been applied to powerful Asian women and to a number of racially Asian film actresses. The stereotype has generated a large quantity of sociological literature. Today, "Dragon Lady" is often applied anachronistically to refer to persons who lived before the term became part of American slang in the 1930s. It has also been used to refer to any powerful but prickly woman, usually in a derogatory fashion.
Read more about Dragon Lady: Background, Terry and The Pirates, Usage, "Dragon Lady" in Chinese Culture
Famous quotes containing the words dragon and/or lady:
“Opinion is not worth a rush;
In this altar-piece the knight,
Who grips his long spear so to push
That dragon through the fading light,
Loved the lady; and it’s plain
The half-dead dragon was her thought....”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Nobody should trust their virtue with necessity, the force of which is never known till it is felt, and it is therefore one of the first duties to avoid the temptation of it.”
—Mary Wortley, Lady Montagu (1689–1762)