WOMEN'S BODY SAFETY

The death of the feminist Pen Wan-Ru who was raped and brutally killed in November 1996 underscores the chronic but serious problems of women's body safety in Taiwan. Public crime control was focused on to solve the problems while the gender issue was ignored. Efforts and measures were then taken to protect the safety of women such as: rearrangement of the police force; founding of Anti-Sexual Violence Centers; "swift" passing of Anti-Sexual Violence Bill which was suspended for three years in Legislation Yuan; calling for the education on women's self defense et al. The issues of the domestic violence, marital rape and incest were largely neglected. The violence against women including physical, psychological and sexual violence increases each year and the victims' ages decrease¹. Young girls constitute the weakest group in the society, even home can not protect them from incest. Concerns about the problems of women's body safety failing to discern and address its gender nature result in superficial cure and ineffectiveness. Education on gender equality to change men's mentality is the key to solve the crime against women fundamentally. Women's organizations urge the sex and gender equality education in the basic education program to effectively secure women's body safety.

In memory of Ms. Pen and the continuous struggle for women's safety, a night time demonstration, "Light up the Night Roads", was organized on Dec. 21 1996. It mobilized about 3,000 people, mostly women. This is the largest demonstration in the history of the Taiwanese women's movement. Pen wan-Ru Foundation was founded the following year. This organization and the Committee for the Promotion of Women's Rights of Taipei City Government jointly promote the network of community public security councils within the communities. It encourages the crime control under the systematic neighborhood cooperation at all levels including the families, schools, stores and police stations. Instead of learning self-defense skills individually, women join together to fight against the crime to protect both themselves and the whole community.

WOMEN AND POLITICS

1/4 Measures

Taiwan women have increasingly become aware of the importance of taking an active role in politics. They wanted move from traditional protests and outside observers to active players in government. They sought entry to the system to have the floor, to voice women's need in policies or affairs of the nation, and to obtain more resources. During the revision of the Constitution in June 1997, women saw the opportunity to guarantee women's participation in politics. With the collective effort, women organization demanded and lobbied for the constitutional amendment to reserve 1/4 of all seats for women in all the legislators and national assemblies. The 1/4 quota amendment was approved for nation's general assembly since the general assembly posses little political power and was to be abolished after one more term. The same such amendment for legislative seats, however, was jointed voted down by KMT and New Party ² representatives, in spite of strong support from DPP³ representatives.

Constitutional revision brought little significance to women's movement--and was actually a backlash. The confrontation showed that men were not willing to share the power and interest with women. A major breakthrough was made in September 1997, however, when the 7^th Party Congress of the DPP passed the measures to reserve for "either sex" 1/4 of all seats of elected party committees and candidates for elected public offices. The change of gender ecology within the DPP certainly will have strong impact on Taiwan political environment, and can lead changes in other parties.

504/518 Demonstrations

In April 1997 the 16 year-old daughter of a famous entertainer was raped and killed after being kidnapped. While Ms. Pen's killer was still at large, another incidence occurred that shocked Taiwan. These prompted the national concern about personal safety, and people questioned and criticized official incompetence, corruption and wrong government policies. Women's groups together with other social movement and organizations launched a demonstration on May 4, 1997 that demanded the President confess his wrong doings and the Minister of the Executive Yuan⁴ step down. These demands were not taken seriously even though about 100,000 people were mobilized, including many women and children. Therefore, the second demonstration was held on May 14 to show the determination of the people and still hold government responsible. Another 100,000 people participated. But the government responded with re-appointment of few cabinet members and the promise that the Minister of Executive Yuan would step down in July 1997. To placate the women's organizations, a woman⁵ was appointed to head the Department of Interior.

This was the first time in Taiwan history that two consecutive demonstrations were held in two weeks. They also mobilized record number of demonstrators. Women and children were the key factors. One thing has to be mentioned. During the process, some women leaders were reluctant to join the demonstrations because the cause was too political, beyond the domain of women's issues. This opened fresh discussions on just what are women's issues? Should feminists be concerned with the environment, national defense, economic polices?

WOMEN AND HEALTH

Promotion of women's health right

As a creator of the future citizens and traditional caretaker of the family, woman should receive great attention and quality care in their health.

However, with the lower socioeconomic status and traditional roles, women's health was largely neglected by the society and themselves. In Taiwan, the dominance of male- centered thinking has brought many bad deals for women. The caesarian rate of Taiwanese women is the world's highest, and the hysterectomy rate is the 3rd in the world. Women are supposed to take the burden of having and not having child. Men are not taught or expected to share responsibilities. Women suffer from taking contraceptives and reproductive technologies such as test tube babies. They also labor themselves physically and mentally to take long-term care of the elderly and family members of chronic disease.

In the early nineties, women's health problems in Taiwan raised concerns in the academic fields. Two sincere scholars, Professor Hu Yow-hwey⁶ and Professor Chang Chueh ⁷, researched women's health status and pointed out the suffering incurred through "gender blind" policies, traditional culture and customs. Beginning 1996, Taipei Association for the Promotion of Women's Rights (TAPWR) launched the movement promoting women's health right to raise women's consciousness of their health. Through sessions, conferences, television, radio, newspapers, women communities and schools, women's health right was discussed and asserted.

Opposing privatization of national health insurance policy

In March 1997 the government for political reasons decided to privatize the health insurance which had been launched two years previously and brought ideal coverage to the entire nation, especially to women and children. A transitional model called "government owns and private operates" paves the road to full privatization. Since commoditization of the health places the wealth of the consortium before the health of people. Women with their special health need and financial vulnerability will suffer most. As a result, in June, the TAPWR allied with other social movement organizations to form "Save National Health Insurance Alliance" to campaign against privatizing the national health insurance. More women's organizations and doctor's organizations joined the campaign later. Until now, the ratification of the policy is still suspended in the Legislation Yuan. The campaign is continuing..

WOMEN AND LAW

Provisions discriminating against women in favor of men range across the legal texts from marriage law, property to employment laws. The long effort to introduce reform so as to protect the rights of women dated back to the 80's. Bills proposed in the Legislative Yuan aimed at rectifying this condition were either stalled or denied due to a male-bias to yield privileges. A strategy was used that was to challenge the constitutionality of anti-women laws. The challenged have either to be revised within a set time or automatically annulled if Grand Justices interpret them as unconstitutional ⁸. The first trial appeal came before the Grand Justices in 1994 regarding the exercising of parental rights which had previously been judged in favor of the father by the law. It was found unconstitutional. Encouraged by this result, a second appeal in July 1996 was made about a woman's property possessed before 1985 which was practically belonged to the husbands by the law. In September 1996, the provisions were rectified that child custody and parental rights were to serve the best interest of the child instead of favoring the father and that married women can own the property whenever they obtained it. The same strategy was employed in 1998. Now women do not have to use their husband's residence as their sole legal residence and women do not have to change their last names into husbands'.

By proving laws unconstitutional, women were able to overcome male-centered resistance to achieve great advances and reform civil laws to enhance their rights. Although huge steps were made in the past two years in bridging gender equality, many other laws, such as complete property law, divorce law, family court, still need be ratified or formulated so that women's rights can be secured.

WOMEN AND HISTORY

Women live and lived, but not in the history. Women and men made history and created the civilization, but women's half do not exist in the history. Historical records, repeatedly reflecting patriarchal value centered on men's events: dynastic changes, downfalls of kingdoms, wars and peace agreements and other great male-based achievements. How did women live? How did they influence empires and contribute to the progress of humanity? How did they perceive the changes of the rulers? These matters are seldom discussed in the "his"tory since women are perceived as mere shadows of men who do not warrant the weight of history. That tendency prompted women to start to write about women and history from women's perspective.

In early nineties, books written about women were published occasionally. However, those were random individual accounts. In order to see a big picture of the historical contribution of women, more women from all walks of lives have to be presented collectively. As a result, that effort began in 1995 with the founding of a movement to record women's life history ⁹. It assembled numerous biographies and autobiographies, narrating records of women's life histories. Spoken histories are of great importance because they tapped a wealth of important history never before recorded from women of lower education, of little resources and could present women in a systematic, comprehensive way.

From autobiography to narrating record, women are constructing their life experiences. The accumulation of the collective memories is shaping up women's life history. We hope that in addition to establishing women's status in the history, we would learn from "her"story and hold the courage to reject unnecessary hardship and suffering in our life as women.

WOMEN AND DIVISIVE ISSUES

In the past women 's groups worked together to struggle for the cause of women's rights. If there were differences, it was always worked out on the principle of sisterhood. However, since 1996 women's groups have become seriously divided on such matters as "feminism v.s. political ideology" and "prostitution".

Feminism vs. Political Ideology

The presidential election of 1996 was the first time in the history that Taiwanese could elect their president by direct votes. Among the four paired-running mates (president/vice-president), there was a female candidate for vice president ¹⁰. Several women leaders called for the support and the endorsement of this female candidate for vice president on the ground of gender solidarity. But, other women leaders objected, arguing that it was illogical to support the candidate for vice president only, not examining the candidate for president. Moreover, there were basic differences in the nation identity ¹¹. In a follow-up meeting of the women's organizations, questions were raised if women's issues should supercede any other political issues or ideology, or if women should support women simply out of the gender solidarity. No consensus was reached. However, it was agreed to disagree.

Prostitution

In September 1997, the Taipei City Government rescinded the licenses of the 128 prostitutes because many licenses were being used by the organized crime to cover up the women trafficking, child prostitutes and exploitation. Two women's organizations ¹² organized few licensed prostitutes to protest against it, arguing that prostitution was their rights to work. Few feminists ¹³ advocated prostitution was in the domain of women's sexual and body autonomy. Most women's organizations ¹⁴ applauded the government clamp down. They pointed out that prostitution was the product of the patriarchal culture to commoditization women's bodies. Although the money for sex exchange appeared voluntary, they argued that it actually built on the financial plight of women and exploited them. Moreover, it distorted the intimate relationship between men and women. As the protest went on, one hardcore faction joined in and attacked the Mayor Chen Suei-Ben alone. At this point, people started to question if the fight was more about political differences than about prostitution.

Regardless if the nature of the protest changed or not, the advocates of the legalization of the prostitution was criticized in three ways. First, they made the Mayor of Taipei the target of their protest when the "right to work" issue was a concern of the central government. Second, they failed to address the issue of male prostitutes--thus reflected the male mentality. Third, they avoided the discussion of the serious social and personal problems associated with the prostitution.

Most other women's groups against legalization called for decriminalization of the prostitutes. Instead of punishing the prostitutes, the law should punish the pimp, the women trafficking rings, the brothel and the patron of the brothel.

The bitter differences on the prostitution among women's groups complicated by other factors presented the unprecedented challenges to sisterhood this time.

NOTES

1. Sexual violence against women increased 29% from 1995 to 1997. Young girls were more susceptible to rape: age12-18, 41.6%; age18-20, 7.2%; age20-29, 19.7%; age30-39, 9.5% in years 1984-1993.   Back to Text

2. Both KMT (Chinese Nationalist Party) and New Party, a right-wing breakaway faction of the KMT see Taiwan as being part of China.   Back to Text

3. DPP or Democratic Progressive Party which advocates Taiwan self-determination and independence.   Back to Text

4. Mr. Lien Zan was the V ice-President and Minister of Executive Yuan.   Back to Text

5. Ms.Yeh zing-fong, a lawyer and ex-legislator   Back to Text

6. Prof. Hu teaches in the Institute of Health and Welfare Policy, National Yangming University.   Back to Text

7. Professor Chang teaches in the Institute of Public Health, National Taiwan University.   Back to Text

8. Article 7 of Constitution states that the people of the Republic of China, regardless of their sex, religion, race, class and party, are all equal before the law.   Back to Text

9. In 1995, TAPWR started the movement "women write about women". Classes were offered to train women on taking narrating records. Since then, "Grandmas' Stories", "Disappearing Grandmas in Taiwan" and "Mothers' Stories", were published by TAPWR and "Back to The Youth" was published by the Awakening Foundation.   Back to Text

10. Ms. Wong Ching-fon, a lawyer actively involved with the issues of child prostitution and comfort women.   Back to Text

11. There are three general preferences for national identities in Taiwan, . Those who assert Taiwan Independence, those who prefer maintaining status quo and a minority who support unification with China.   Back to Text

12. The Awakening Foundation and the Pink Collar Alliance   Back to Text

13. Professor Ho, Josephine teaches in the Department of English, Central University.   Back to Text

14. Taipei Women's Rescue Center, The Garden of Hope Foundation, Taiwan Feminist Studies Association, End Child Prostitution Association in Taiwan, Homemaker's Union and Foundation, Tapwr et al.   Back to Text

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