Because of its remarkable economic development, social prosperity, raised standard of living, and steadily higher levels of public education, Taiwan has become a model among developing countries.
While these are familiar themes in the media, and rightly so, a less frequent story deserves more publicity: the roles of women in government, including elective and appointive offices as well as the civil service. There have been successes, but many goals remain unfulfilled.
Due to rapid economic development and concomitant changes in Taiwan's industrial structure, women have moved into the marketplace in steadily greater numbers. Women now enjoy higher educational levels, improved work capacities, and better standards of living.
Because of successful family planning programs in both cities and rural areas, women now have fewer child care burdens, freeing themselves for additional, diverse activities. And, of course, modernization has simplified household chores. It is sometimes difficult to believe that the mothers of today's college students most likely started their own married lives cooking on charcoal, washing their husband's laundry by hand, and wishing some day that they could own an electric refrigerator.
There is also less restriction on the sorts of employment open to women. The legal protections of the position of women in society, as well as upgraded conceptions of equal rights for both sexes, have made the conditions of women's employment more reasonable and fair. Women now enter the marketplace with less concern about exploitation. Employed women accounted for 36.5 percent of the labor market by 1985.
Consistent with this figure, the proportion of women holding governmental offices has tended to increase. Women generally have not held many high-ranking positions in government, elective or otherwise, but they seem to have a brighter future in this regard.
The rate of women passing the Civil Service Examinations has increased sharply, which has steadily changed the proportion of male to female employees in government service. Despite these changes, some hitches remain. Not surprisingly. There has been a history of resistance to women entering the halls of governmental power.
Since the founding of the Constitutional Government in 1912, the Republic of China has never had a woman President, Premier, or president of one of the five Yuan. Today there still are no female ministers or ministers of state, and only one female who is deputy head of a government agency. Yet 20th Century world leaders like Golda Meir, Indira Gandhi, Margaret Thatcher, and Corazon Aquino serve as examples for Chinese women to emulate. Their national and international prominence indicates that women can and should be granted equal access to political authority.
At present there are some successful local role models, although they are not at the highest political levels, for example, among the 19 members of Examination Yuan, two are female. The Judicial Yuan has one female grand justice of 16 sitting judges. Of the 84 new members of the National Assembly (parliament) elected in 1986, ten are female. The proportions of both female candidates and winners in last year's elections were higher than ever before.
But of the 73 new legislators in the Legislative Yuan, only seven are women. The proportion of female candidates and winners was not high, but winners won because of total votes and not because of the "reserved seats" system that guarantees positions for women. In fact, some female legislators received vote totals much higher than other males who also were elected. Of the 22 added members of Control Yuan, three are female, but no women were nominated for election by the ruling Kuomintang.
On the provincial and municipality levels of government, so far there has not been a female governor or a female mayor of Kaohsiung or Taipei. At present, Taiwan province has 77 provincial assemblymen, thirteen of whom are women. Taipei municipality has 51 assemblymen, and only nine are female, while Kaohsiung municipality has six female assemblymen.
Taiwan province has 21 magistrates and mayors; two of them are female. Previous to last year's election, no women had been elected magistrate or mayor. And the candidates and winners in the 1986 election were all from the "Tangwai," (literally, outside the party-referring to candidates that run without the support of the ruling party). This fact indicates that the ruling party (the Kuomintang or KMT) has not had much interest so far in supporting women for heads of local governments.
The picture is brighter in the area of female employment in government offices at all levels. The totals have increased steadily. According to statistics from the Examination Yuan, there were 172,238 governmental employees in 1985. Of these, 42,120, or 24.5 percent, were female, up from 21 percent in 1981.
Not so happily, 90.1 percent of the female governmental employees held low-ranking positions. The number of middle and high ranking female governmental employees remains very small.
But younger female governmental employees now outnumber their elder peers, with 42.3 percent 29 years old or less, and 39.2 percent in the 30-39 year age bracket. Women of all ages in government generally have received solid educational training: 50.7 percent have received advanced education, and 69 percent qualified for their current offices by passing civil service examinations.
Although women generally have received higher education than their male counterparts, the rate of female governmental employees leaving office is higher than it is for males. Studies have shown that the female employees were less satisfied with their governmental positions than were the males.
Women have constitutionally protected rights, making discrimination against women in political participation, employment, and compensation illegal. Beyond these provisions, women have been guaranteed a certain degree of representation (about one-fifth to one-tenth) in legislative bodies at all levels of elections. This ideally shows that women in Taiwan have no distinctions in treatment but actually better protection than men.
Social change has put even more power into these provisions. The rate of women receiving advanced education has soared in recent years. In 1985, 43.2 percent of Taiwan's college students were women. Female students majoring in social science now outnumber their male classmates. As a result, women are in better positions to compete with men in public office elections and civil service examinations. With equal right to participate in politics and stronger competitiveness, women should be making progressively more impressive gains in the political arena. They now have momentum in positive directions, but there are still obstacles to overcome.
Chinese people are rather conservative in their assessments of the proper roles for women in the community. They encourage women to play the role of "dutiful wife and loving mother," and generally are prejudiced against women becoming active in the realm of politics. This tradition is reflected in the policies of the ruling party.
For example, the KMT has not actively nominated women for election, and the number of female candidates has never exceeded the number required to fill seats reserved for women. Heads of government agencies, who are all male, rarely name women for higher positions, and usually avoid recruiting very many female employees.
This orientation is replicated on lower levels. Career women often face less than enthusiastic support from the community and from organizations for their efforts in balancing household affairs and child care with their work responsibilities. Social conventions are changing, but married women who are also employed of course still think of their families first. The result frequently is that women often have lower expectations of themselves in the marketplace, and these are matched with fears that high achievement at work may have adverse effects on their marriages.
Worries such as these are justified. It is difficult to strike a workable balance between career and children that satisfies both job responsibilities with traditional ethics. Such concerns carry over to women who contemplate active participation in government.
When Chinese women look to the future, they expect further reduction in sexual discrimination to evolve along with the continued modernization of society and the development of scientific technology. And it is safe to say that increasing numbers of women will find employment across a broad spectrum of possibilities, including positions in public offices. This is an international phenomenon—a process that cannot be interrupted—and can only be responded to in positive ways, and regulated with sympathetic and proper care.
The Republic of China on Taiwan is part of this international shift in the role of women in society, including politics. As the ROC continues its own phenomenal modernization, it must draw upon the knowledge and skills of all its human resources, male and female. In light of this, women may well expect the ruling party to take the lead in increasing female nominees for elective offices, and in appointing qualified women to all levels of government positions.
The ROC faces challenging social and political problems, as do all nations; despite the responsibilities of child bearing and rearing, it is clear that women will enter increasingly into all aspects of society and be a major force in generating solutions. — (Dr. Liang Shuang-lian is an associate professor at National Taiwan University, where she received her Ph.D. in Political Science.)