Iron Lady—Margaret Thatcher
鐵娘子——瑪格麗特·撒切爾
Iron Lady is a nickname that has frequently been used to describe female heads of government around the world. The term describes a “strong willed” woman. This iron metaphor was most famously applied to Margaret Thatcher， nicknamed so in 1976 by the Soviet media for her staunch opposition to communism.
She was the catalyst who set in motion a series of interconnected events that gave a revolutionary twist to the century's last two decades and helped mankind end the millennium on a note of hope and confidence. The triumph of capitalism， the almost universal acceptance of the market as indispensable to prosperity， the collapse of Soviet imperialism， the downsizing of the state on nearly every continent and in almost every country in the world—Margaret Thatcher played a part in all those transformations， and it is not easy to see how many would have occurred without her.
Born in 1925， Margaret Hilda Roberts was an enormously industrious girl. The daughter of a Grantham shopkeeper， she studied on scholarship， worked her way to Oxford and took two degrees， in chemistry and law. Her fascination with politics led her into Parliament at age 34， when she argued her way into one of the best Tory seats in the country， Finchley in north London. Her quick mind (and faster mouth) led her up through the Tory ranks， and by age 44 she got settled into the “statutory woman's” place in the Cabinet as Education Minister， and that looked like the summit of her career. But Thatcher was， and is， notoriously lucky. In 1975 she challenged Edward Heath for the Tory leadership simply because the candidate of the party's right wing abandoned the contest at the last minute. When she went into Heath's office to tell him her decision， he did not even bother to look up. “You'll lose，” he said， “Good day to you.”
Margaret was serious iron during her reign as Prime Minister. She brought down national institutions such as out-of-control unions and she set about privatizing the nationalized industries. However， by the end of the 1980s， more than 50 countries had adopted Thatcher's privatization policy. Even left wing countries began to reduce their public sector secretively.