An iconic source of images of East Asian women in the 20th century in the West is the 1957 novel that was adapted into a movie in 1960, "The World of Suzie Wong," about a Hong Kong woman. The titular character is represented through a frame of white masculine heterosexual desire: Suzie is portrayed as a submissive prostitute that is sexually turned on at the idea of being beaten by a white man. UC Berkeley Professor of Asian American Studies Elaine Kim argued in the 1980s that the stereotype of East Asian women as submissive has impeded their economic mobility.