Men in imperial China repeatedly portrayed as weretigers the women and ethnic minorities or foreign nationalities under their domination. Even though they held a cultural hegemony over these other groups, many men feared them, and sometimes demonized them as fearsome creatures. This demonization of the other by the Confucian male hegemony displays imperialist, elitist, racist, and sexist characteristics. The Chinese patriarchy often interpreted the woman's transformation into a tiger in terms of the violation of a taboo, with connotations of subversion. On the other hand, the woman as weretiger suggests male fear of female sexual appetites. Particularly in the late imperial period, the Chinese cultural hegemony used the transformation to demonize ethnic minorities or foreign subject peoples, many of whom were also women. The fact that the legends depict women and ethnic weretigers in far more negative terms than their male counterparts suggests that to the Han patriarchal hegemony, other ethnic groups and women had a bestial, less-than-human nature, and that their innate ferocity caused their metamorphosis into tigers. Such beliefs are based on the assumption of Confucian males that women and minorities were unhappy under the status quo, and keen to overthrow it, devouring their masters. Because of the dire consequences of failing to dominate such dangerous creatures, the ruling authorities, personified by Han male officialdom, had every excuse to repress them.