The battle of the sexes finds a new front, as the nation's
women gain increasing responsibility and respect by serving
in the armed forces in record numbers.
If you stand on the shore of the western coast of Taiwan and peer out into the Taiwan Strait, chances are that you may see the gray, angular form of a warship slicing through the water. Look carefully, and you will recognize Taiwan's national ensign fluttering from the ship's stern as it goes to sea to stand watch through the night.
On the ship's bridge, the captain watches over his crew as they execute their orders. He is proud of his ship and the duty it performs.
Liu Hsiao-hua, 26, believes that one day she will be the captain of a similar vessel. She has no doubts, for Lieutenant Junior Grade Liu is the anti-submarine warfare officer aboard the PFG-1206, the Dyi Huah, a Lafayette-class frigate out of Tsoying Naval Base. A graduate of the ROC Naval Academy, Liu knows what she wants to accomplish during her career. "As a naval officer, I want to become the captain of a ship," Liu says aboard the Dyi Huah.
Her commanding officer, Commander David Lin, agrees that Liu has the qualities of command. "Lieutenant Liu could become the first woman to command a ship in the ROC Navy," he says. "I am fully confident in her abilities."
While many think that Liu and women like her are rare in Asia, Taiwan's military is the exception. Taiwan's dynamic society is seeing a revolution in the social role of women, as can be seen from politics (Taiwan has a woman vice president) to the record number of women working in every imaginable field.
The military is a profession that has historically been reserved for men, but in recent years it has attracted an ever-growing number of women to its ranks. And female military officers see the changing perceptions of women in uniform as the natural byproduct of the social and cultural advances that women have made over the past few decades.
According to the Ministry of National Defense (MND), there are now over 8,000 female officers and non-commissioned officers in Taiwan's armed forces, representing approximately 7 percent of all such military personnel. Although this may seem like a small percentage, one need only compare it with the number of women serving in the military in other countries to see that Taiwan is at the fore of this trend.
According to statistics in the NATO Review , only six of the 18 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization boast a greater percentage of women in their ranks, and only three nations actually have more women in uniform than does Taiwan.
The numbers speak even more eloquently closer to home. No Asian nation for which military demographics are readily available has anywhere close to the same percentage of female service members. Even in Japan's Self Defense Forces, arguably the most advanced indigenous military organization in East Asia, women comprise only 4.3 percent of active duty personnel.
Nor is it that Taiwan's military is a paper tiger, small if fashionably integrated. Taiwan's armed forces number approximately 300,000, a number swollen by the mandatory military-service laws. Yet, Taiwan's women are exempt from the military service, and therefore every woman who has elected to wear a uniform and take up the burden of bearing arms has done so voluntarily. What drives a woman to join the military?
"Most of my friends thought I was not suited for military life," says Captain Tsao Pei-chih of the Air Force, a search-and-rescue helicopter pilot with the Aerial Rescue Group based at Chiayi Air Base. The Air Rescue Group is the only unit of its kind in Taiwan, and Tsao is one of the unit's four female pilots.
"They thought that I was very tender, and no one thought I could do it," she said, "so it was important to me to prove that I could." Such snide remarks exacerbated the pressures Tsao experienced during flight training. "The truth is, I used to get airsick," she says. But after her second time aboard a T-34 training aircraft, she got used to flying. Along the way, she also learned to handle the cracks of those who doubted her ability and the ability of women to perform as well as men.
After four years in the Air Force, Tsao has probably succeeded in winning over any naysayers about her ability to succeed. She has logged over 1,100 flight hours in her SH-70C, and has taken part in a dazzling array of missions. Her experiences range from conducting operations in support of routine military drills to joining the search for survivors of the CI-611 air disaster in 2002, in which a Boeing 747-200, crashed into the sea north of Penghu, an archipelago off western Taiwan, on May 25, 2002, killing 209 passengers and 16 crew. Being a woman makes no difference, Tsao says. "If you can do the job, it doesn't matter if you are a man or a woman."
Other military officers echo Tsao's sentiments. "I am glad to see more and more women joining the military," says Major Yi Cheng-han of the Marine Corps. "If a man can do it, why can't a woman?" The 32-year-old Yi has served in the Marines for nine years and knows a lot about challenges. In 1999, the Ministry of National Defense recognized Yi as military officer of the year for her outstanding performance while serving as the commander of a combat logistics company.
Her pride in this achievement was equaled only by her satisfaction in knowing that her superiors trusted her abilities and were willing to continue giving her opportunities to excel.
Military life can be hard, but not necessarily more so for women than for men, Yi says. The difficulties she has run into are not vastly different than what she might have encountered in the civilian world. "Many women have preconceptions about life in the military, most of which are wrong. As the saying goes, the important thing is to choose what you love, and love what you choose," Yi says. Her biggest problem is finding enough time to spend with her three-year-old son and two-year-old daughter. But her husband--also a Marine--and her extended family help her fulfill her responsibilities.
Indeed, family support can play an integral role in helping anyone succeed in their chosen career field, and people in Taiwan seem more than willing to support women who decide to join the military. "My family thinks that I am better educated, happier, and have grown as an individual since I joined the Army," says Captain Lee Ya-ting. Lee, 27, is the company commander of the 507 Floating Bridge Company, Bridge Battalion, 53 Engineer Group. "I plan to stay in the Army my entire life," she says, after giving a demonstration of her company's hardware, the M3 Moveable Bridge Unit. The M3 is a German-made amphibious vehicle that converts from a truck into a maneuverable pontoon bridge.
During one evaluation period, Lee and her company were able to construct a 100-meter bridge in only 16 minutes, surpassing the record of the German makers of the bridge. For accomplishments such as that, her unit was chosen as the Army's model unit in 2002.
As a combat engineer, Lee would probably be on the frontlines in the event of a conflict. Lee said that when she joined the military, she knew she would face some unique difficulties. "Serving in the Army is a challenge," she says. "You just have to learn to adjust."
Women who volunteer to serve in the armed services may have to be ready to adapt, but they also benefit from an official policy that supports their role in defending Taiwan. According to the MND's 2002 National Defense Report, Taiwan "continues to recruit female individuals to attend various academies and schools, or specialized classes for officers or NCOs. In addition, female officers and NCOs are gradually to be assigned to vacancies in combat and technical service units and will be promoted through respective MOS [military occupational specialty] spheres." In 1991, responding to criticism of its recruiting efforts, the nation opened up its military ranks to women. Since that year, the ratio of women to men in the military has climbed and shows no signs of declining.
Still, there has been some debate over certain aspects of the military's policies toward female soldiers, the most recent notable example being a discussion of the appropriateness of the quota system in military academies. Under this system, the service academies are limited in the number of female students they may allow to matriculate each year. The quota system gained considerable media attention when three exceptional young female candidates competed for acceptance to the National Defense Management College. As only two positions were open for women, one of the candidates, Lei Chia-chia gave up her admission to make room for Chang Ying-hua, who received top scores on the joint college entrance exam. But despite the criticism of the admission policies, the country's relatively flexible approach is still perceived as a success story, and not just by the Taiwanese.
The nation's female military members have also made their mark abroad by earning admission to all three of the most prestigious military academies in the United States. Hsu Shu-hsiang is currently serving in the Navy, having graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 2002, while Yu Chang-jung is now a midshipman at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, scheduled to graduate in 2007. Finally, Hung Wan-ting is attending the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York. She is also a member of the class of 2007.
Also, in 2001, the ROC promoted its third female officer to the rank of general officer. Major General Pan Ai-chu is an Army officer with over 20 years of experience in "Bandit Intelligence," or intelligence operations concerning the People's Republic of China. Undoubtedly, her experience is a wonderful addition to Taiwan's national security establishment.
So should Taiwan do more to attract women to the uniformed services? "The military presents a challenge, as well as a great opportunity for a woman," Yi says. "Female service members' contributions are vital to the nation's defense, just as they are to any other sector of society."
Many military policymakers, who are mostly men, agree, says Yi. Female officers might have characteristics that could help to widen and thereby strengthen debate about defense policies, she says.
For women who do decide to join the armed services, Liu has some advice. "Don't just be attracted by the charming uniform," she says. "You must stick to your goals and have unwavering confidence." If her attitude is any indication, it may not be too many years before you can sit on the shore and watch Taiwan's first female skipper take her ship out to sea.
Captain Tsao Pei-chih, ROCAF
Upon graduating from the Chinese Culture University in 1996, Tsao Pei-chih, like so many other college graduates, did not know what kind of career to pursue. Although she had always wanted to join the military, it was not until her elder sister told her that the ROC Air Force Academy was accepting women in its flight training program that she knew exactly what she wanted to do: become an Air Force pilot.
She joined the academy, and after one year and seven months, earned her commission. The Air Force's commander-in-chief personally pinned on her wings in 1998. "During my flight training, my mother was very opposed to my career choice," Tsao said. "But when I earned my wings, she changed her mind, and she is proud of what I have done."
Today, Captain Tsao pilots the SH-70C helicopter, a variant of the UH-60 Blackhawk helicopter. Her unit, the Aerial Rescue Group, stationed at Chiayi Air Base in southern Taiwan, is the Air Forces' only search-and-rescue unit. It is responsible for all search-and-rescue operations that fall under the military's jurisdiction, as well as coordinating with civil authorities in disaster-relief efforts during times of emergency.
During her career as a search-and-rescue pilot, Tsao has had a vast array of experiences. One of her most haunting memories is of the Taipei-based China Airlines Flight 611 air disaster, when the ill-fated flight, bound for Hong Kong, broke up over the Taiwan Strait just 20 minutes after taking off from CKS International Airport on May 25, 2002. The accident killed all 225 crew and passengers on board the aircraft.
It was not until two days after the rescue operations began that Tsao saw the scattered wreckage. "I was shocked to see all of the bodies in the water," she said, "and all I wanted was to guide the ships to the scene as quickly as possible to see if anything could be done."
Tsao was too busy and too professional to let her personal feelings interfere with her duty. "It wasn't until that night, after I was done flying, that I thought about the crash and how the families must feel," she said.
Yet, experiencing firsthand the human tragedy of such disasters reaffirm Tsao's commitment to her profession. "Being in the military is not a game," she said. "Most people think that only fighter pilots are combat flyers, but that is not the case." No matter what kind of situation occurs around her, and no matter what the flying conditions are, her group has to perform its mission.
People may think that the reason she chose her job is trite, but she puts it simply enough: "I am here to defend my country."
Mac William Bishop, a former US Marine, is a freelance journalist based in Taipei.
Copyright (c) 2004 by Mac William Bishop.