Tsai Ing-wen is many things: an avid coffee-drinker, a former law professor, and an unapologetic lover of cats, just to name a few. She’s also a vital piece of Asian history: in 2016 she was elected as the first-ever female president of Taiwan. The 2016 election cycle was historic for many countries, but perhaps the most infamous election that year took place in the United States, where a campaign was playing out with another potential first-female president, Hillary Clinton. However, while Tsai finished the year as president-elect, Hillary Clinton lost the electoral (if not the popular) vote to her male competitor, Donald Trump.
There was little evidence that it would be inevitable for Taiwan to elect a woman as their new leader. Taiwan, historically speaking, was not known as a particularly progressive country on gender issues. The United States, on the other hand, touts itself as the paradigm of democracy. What made it so possible for Taiwan to elect a female president where other, seemingly more progressive countries could not?
This historic change can perhaps be best attributed to a type of mutual reinforcement system of female power and representation in Taiwan. The country’s system created a culture of female representation and political reform, and that culture, when taken in the context of growing dissatisfaction with its political establishment, creates a society that is more accepting of strong female leaders. Taiwan embarked on its feminist course because it had a desperate desire for change, a system in place to support female politicians, and the societal culture to elect a female president – three things other countries such as the United States sorely lack.
One of the most important structures that made it possible for Tsai to be elected was Taiwan’s quota system. Taiwan currently has in place a “reserved-seat” system so that women must get half the ‘at-large’ seats in the legislature and one out of every four seats in electoral districts in local council elections. The original Article 134 of the 1947 Republic of China Constitution in force in Taiwan stated that, “In the various elections, a certain number of mandates shall be reserved to women; the law provides for the implementation of this objective.” This arrangement was designed to help women overcome the societal barriers that would prevent them from reaching the same political power as their male counterparts – however, this constitutional article required further reforms to fully realize its potential for female representation and empowerment.
Taiwanese feminist groups and politicians took action in the 1990s to improve the aforementioned quota system, increasing the number of reserved political seats from about 10% to about 25%. One such advance was the Local Government Act, which was instituted in 1999 and reserves seats for female politicians in smaller, local elections — an area overlooked in Article 134. Nonetheless, even this legislation has its limitations. As feminist activist Chao-Yuan Tseng comments, “the ‘reserving seats for women’ is only applicable to constituencies with larger population, which requires four or more elected seats (reserving seats for women means at least one woman in every four elected candidates).” This means that in districts with smaller populations, local elections are still very much so male-dominated, and in some instances, politics dominated by local cultural and familial ties can make it increasingly difficult for women to feel they have a place in government. Tseng goes on to state that feminist organizations have advocated that the government shifts from reserving one-fourth seats for women to one-third representation. There is potential for such quotas to be realized, as the provisions of Article 4 of the Additional Articles of the Constitution assert that “the number of elected female members on each party’s list shall not be less than one-half of the total number.”
Having a quota system lends itself to the structure of Taiwanese politics in a variety of ways. Many attribute the fact that women are so prevalent in Taiwanese politics to these quotas. Currently, the mandatory quota has been exceeded to the point at which 38% of Taiwan’s legislators are female, as compared to the 22% average among the rest of the world. The percentage is so high that some have begun to call the quota itself “unnecessary” in how many more women are rising to political power than are mandated by the constitution. Indeed after the 2016 election, Taiwan ranked #10 in the list of countries with the greatest percentage of female representation in their legislature: the United States does not even rank within the top 20.
Many countries have taken it upon themselves to introduce these quotas to their political frameworks, with generally positive results. Countries that have implemented these quotas in Latin America and Africa have shown increases in the amount of female representation in politics in recent years, where areas of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, with no reserved positions, have decreased in their percentages of female representation. These quotas are traditionally implemented through international pressure, an influence that is notably absent in “mature democracies” (such as the United States) and likely reveals why some of those same countries have such low female representation in their governments.
Women’s political involvement in perspective
With the forced integration of women in the government, Taiwanese women have been able to fight for even greater reforms in areas such as education and in the workforce. Taiwan is unique in how much progress it has made in female education in recent decades, particularly given how very limited the educational system used to be, especially for women. In fact, as recently as 60 years ago, the average Taiwanese man had approximately 4 years of schooling where the average woman would have only 1.5 years. However, through a series of reforms within the educational system — such as creating laws mandating primary schooling or increasing the number of compulsory years of education — the percentage of high school educated residents has drastically increased: rising from 32% in the early 70s to 60% for women in the past few decades alone. Now, Taiwan has a greater enrollment in higher education than many other Asian countries, including China and Singapore.
Therefore, more women are entering professional fields that require higher levels of education, leading overall to more women in positions of power and prestige in society. Though they are more likely to continue past 15 years of education, the number of women in Taiwan’s workforce is admittedly still lower than that of men, but the general education made available and encouraged for women leads to more possibility for future female leadership. Moreover, female legislators brought to life important reforms such as reworking the language taught in schools to be less sexist and instituting the Gender Equality Workplace Law, dedicated to “eliminating gender discrimination [and promoting] the spirit of substantial gender equality.” In fact, at the recent Rakuten Future Forum in 2016, in which prominent Taiwanese businesswomen gave advice to the next generation, Grace Wang (the CEO of lifestyle brand VVG) emphasized the importance of women learning and taking advantage of opportunity, and Chia-Ching Hsu (a former spokesperson for Taiwan’s Democratic Progressive Party) emphasized the fact that, “[d]uring the last 20 years, Taiwanese women have become more independent, more educated and, most importantly, [now] have more disposable income than ever before.”
The push to improve women’s rights has not been exclusively the prerogative of female legislators. Feminist organizations have played an equally crucial role. Indeed, there is a long history of civic activism regarding women’s issues. Yang Tsui’s The Taiwanese Women’s Liberation Movement under Japanese Colonial Rule or Academia Sinica’s Research of Women in Modern Chinese History has extensive articles on modern women’s rights activism in the 1920s. Throughout the rest of the century, female liberation movements began to crop up, most often when there was greater political mobility: as the government fluctuated between accepting and suppressing socio-political movements, the women’s liberation movement waxed and waned as well.
Amongst the most prominent feminist organization in recent history has been The Awakening Foundation. The Awakening Movement is a magazine, a feminist revolutionary group, and an important part of Taiwan’s political sphere. Founded by Lee Yuan-Chen, the magazine was created as a space for Taiwanese feminists, activists, and intellectuals to read and write for on issues of gender equality, and has become a movement of mostly female Taiwanese revolutionaries that has become increasingly relevant in drafting legislation — such as their notable work in lobbying for legislation on abortion — and instituting social change within the country. This group has managed to advance feminist movements in Taiwanese culture and has allowed people to see strong feminists in daily life and in positions that bolster the idea of strong female leadership. The Foundation works to combat gender discrimination and mobilize women within Taiwanese society, and they have done so through a long history of protests through its publishings, legislative initiatives, and promotion of female rights.
The Awakening Movement and other feminist organizations intersected with the broader democracy and Taiwanization movements of the past forty years, establishing a crucial link between feminism and Taiwanese political culture. The so-called “plant-based protests” — the Wild Lilies of the 1990s, the Wild Strawberries at the end of the 2000s, and most recently the Sunflower Movement of 2014 — are all reminiscent of the Awakening Movement: political outsiders looking to institute societal change on a federal level. In fact, even more similarly, many of those who participated in these movements were women. In particular, the Sunflower Movement is notable for the fact that many of those involved, as well as students and young people, are housewives, women and mothers taking a stand against Chinese trade. The Wild Lily Movement, in turn, had support from the Progressive Women’s Union.
Movements such as these are also represented on a larger political scale. In the municipal elections of 2018, the number of female municipal public servants grew, and the average percent of female members of parliament rose to 33.6%. For the first time in Taiwan’s history, female members of parliament make up more than one-third of the total number of seats. In the same municipal elections, even the conservative Kuomintang nominated seven female candidates, all of whom were elected. As Chao-Yuan Tseng of the Awakening Foundation noted, “some women were nominated because of the gender quota system or other factors, while most women accumulated experiences and political strength when they are elected. Compared with their male colleagues, women’s political performances are just as good as men are.”
Female political leaders today
Unsurprisingly, female leaders have been given prominent roles in the progressive “Third Force” parties. For example, the New Power Party (born out of the Sunflower Movement) is a young political party dedicated to the advocation of universal human rights. The New Power Party (NPP) can be specifically noted for their prominent female representation. Taiwanese politician Kwalo lyun Pacidal, for example, is an indigenous Taiwanese female politician who was elected as one of only two of the New Power Party’s at-large legislators. Lin Ying-meng is another female NPP leader who is openly a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and a recently-elected council member, but a politician who describes herself as, “a nerd who likes to play video games.” Similarly, Hung Tzu-yung won a legislative seat in the 3rd constituency of Taichung City as a member of the New Power Party. She said of her decision to run, “I remember visiting a small town mayor, and the mayor said, ‘It is really tough to get elected in this district.’ At the time, I was with a DDP legislator, who was going to run, and I responded to the mayor, ‘I am running precisely because it is difficult.’”
Similarly, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) is a left-leaning political party centered around such social justice movements, and with prominent female leaders. The head of the SDP is Fan Yun, a life-long activist and prominent feminist, who recently was re-elected in 2018. There is also Miao Poya, who — along with Lin Ying-meng — is one of Taiwan’s first openly gay politicians and was elected in the 2018 election cycle as a city councilmember running with the Social Democratic Party in Taipei City.
Many of these SDP, NPP, and DPP female leaders have had extensive experience in community activist movements as well: Miao Poya was a social movement worker calling for an end to the death penalty, Lin Ying-meng was a participant in the Sunflower Movement as well as a number of other social movements, and Fan Yun was an activist from the Wild Lilies movement. Fan believes that “a more progressive third party will push the two major parties to be progressive too, and bring new thinking into Taiwan’s politics.” Fan also noted that in the 2016 election year, the very same one in which Tsai was elected, the young candidates of the SDP did quite well. Despite all of these positive developments, Fan acknowledges that these civic social movements still have a fight ahead of them: “Only some of the Wild Lily movement’s goals have achieved fruition through full popular legislative elections — there are still many unfinished aspirations for political and economic reform, including the deepening of democracy, further congressional reform, social justice and income inequality.” The election of such socially-conscious female politicians demonstrate the clear association between feminist values and these broader radical reform movements, all of which benefited from the historical legacy of quotas.
These successes at the legislative and local levels are significant and heartening, but as the United States’ own example demonstrated, this does not necessarily carry over to the executive branch. Arguably the road to a female president in Taiwan began with Annette Lu. Lu was a prominent Taiwanese feminist in the 1970s and 1980s, establishing what is considered the first formal Taiwanese feminist movement and championing women’s rights before her eventual arrest in 1979. Lu’s arrest came after the Kaohsuing Incident, in which Lu spoke out against the government at a Human Rights Day rally and was subsequently arrested with many other pro-democracy leaders. Lu then joined the Democratic Progressive Party in 1990 and worked her way up in politics, being elected to the Legislative Yuan in 1992 and the Magistrate of Taoyuan in 1997 until she was finally elected to be Chen Shui-bian’s running partner in the 2000 presidential election and went on to become the vice president of Taiwan.
She was especially noted for her rise in politics because she was so outspoken on feminist issues and managed to achieve her positions without relying on dynastic descent. These feats were made all the more impressive by the fact that Lu fought through rampant sexism throughout her career, being called “difficult” and “power hungry,” being accused of “dropping the card of sexism,” and facing rumors of all kinds, ranging from her being an abandoned child to a princess to a folk singer to a lesbian. For her prominence in Taiwanese politics and political movements, including the writing of her book New Feminist, her occupation as a staff member on Formosa Magazine, and her participation in Taiwanese government, Lu has established herself as one of Taiwan’s most prominent feminist icons.
Despite Lu’s pioneering example, the road to a female executive was not smooth, as the experiences of Tsai Ing-wen herself demonstrate. Tsai has decades of experience in the political world, stemming from the early 1990s, when she worked under President Lee Teng-hui, where she facilitated Taiwan’s move to join the World Trade Organization. Tsai was introduced to the Democratic Progressive Party when President Chen Shui-bian, a member of the DPP, appointed her as a chair of the Mainland Affairs Council. Tsai officially became a member of the DPP in 2004, when she was elected as a member to the Legislative Yuan, Taiwan’s national legislature. Tsai continued to rise, eventually becoming the presidential candidate for the DPP in 2012 — a position that her precedessor Annette Lu considered, but ultimately decided against.
While Tsai managed to become the first female presidential candidate in Taiwan’s history, she still had to contend with those who were opposed to a this historic milestone. One prominent member from her own party commented that a “skirt-wearer” was unfit to lead a country. Tsai also faced a multitude of sexist views throughout her career because she is an unmarried woman. Male critics speculated that Tsai might be “…‘dangerous’ because single people make ‘extreme’ decisions.” In fact, presidential candidate James Soong posted to his campaign’s Facebook page during the campaign against Tsai: “How can single women understand the needs of a family?” Despite all the trolling, Tsai won 45% of the vote in 2012 and only narrowly lost her first presidential run to President Ma Ying-jeou.
As a lifelong victim of sexist attitudes, President Tsai has been heavily involved in improving conditions for women throughout her career. She spoke of her motivation at a speech given in 2017: “To fully realize gender equality in our society, we must break the grip of traditional norms, and give every woman the right to choose her role in society, and a chance to pursue her aspirations.” Accordingly, she has implemented many laws to further achieve Taiwanese gender equality, implementing new child-care laws and easing female access to loans.
Taiwanization and women’s rights
Tsai perfectly demonstrates how feminism, democracy, and Taiwanization intersect to provide a powerful progressive political culture, in clear contrast to Taiwan’s threatening neighbor, China. Reminiscent of the comments that she received in 2012 by her Taiwanese peers, a Chinese newspaper stated that, “[a]s a single female politician, she has no emotional encumbrances of love, no family restraint, no children to worry about. Her political style and tactics are often emotional, personalized, and extreme.” Throughout all of the backlash, Tsai, like many other prominent female leaders, persisted, stating, “I am not angry, it doesn’t bother me … I hope society will give more space to single women, more understanding, more respect and more tolerance.” However, there may be signs of hope in Tsai’s case: from her 2012 presidential run to her 2016 one, the declining number of articles in the Taiwanese media commenting specifically on her gender and critiquing her for her sex, appearance, “female” vs “male” traits, or any other number of sexist topics show a promising trend of a gradually greater acceptance of female politicians.
Nonetheless, Taiwanization on its own is not enough to account for the growing prominence of female leaders. As Chao-Yuan Tseng comments, “the Taiwanization movement, generally speaking, used to emphasize the culture of masculine resistance and had a great anxiety on the preservation of Taiwanese culture and traditions.” This may contribute to the fact that older generations of Taiwanese citizens are less likely to vote in favor of these more progressive candidates, as was demonstrated in the recent 2018 election year. As the SDP’s Fan Yun noted, while they are popular in the city of Taipei, more rural parts of Taiwan are not so eager to embrace these social movements. As well as a reluctance in more rural areas, Tseng believes that many Taiwanese citizens may be put off of these social justice advances by an onslaught of false media news. She believes that this backlash from false media is particularly rampant in the issues of LGBTQ+ rights in Taiwan, something that Fan, the SDP, and the NPP have been avidly advocating for. According to Tseng, “from result of the referendums this year, [Taiwan] found out that there are a large number of middle-aged and elderly people who are against gender issues [and] voted against the referendum on marriage equality and gender equality education.” Such attitudes demonstrate all the more powerfully why quotas were needed decades ago, and perhaps why they are needed still.
Having these quotas and creating these reforms also allows society to recognize how the perception of women as agents of change is evolving in Taiwan. Many young people in Taiwan and the United States alike are frustrated with the current state of their government. This new generation has had something that American youth haven’t yet: strong, prominent female leaders who have been shown as agents of change. Therefore, when the Taiwanese people want reform, they look to their female leaders, where Americans are left floundering for solutions.
With women as a mandatory part of Taiwan’s legislature, they are able to set an example for the general public of what female leadership can look like. Taiwanese citizens see strong, capable women making important legislation and being active members of the government: this in turn acclimates society to the idea of having female leaders and placing their trust and support in those leaders, helping to rid Taiwanese culture of patriarchal stereotypes.
In addition to creating a different way of thinking, viewing women in positions of power can inspire other women to pursue those same career choices and continues the cycle of having strong female leaders as an accustomed part of Taiwan’s atmosphere. With this culture of support for women in politics, Tsai Ing-wen had a platform through which to ascend to her position in the DDP, and eventually to the presidency, as do many other Taiwanese women as compared to the United States, which boasted approximately 19% female representation in its Houses in the election year of 2016, a number that is not only lower than Taiwan; it’s lower than the global average, as well.
Since the United States hasn’t had that societal female support or representation, there is the question of where to go from this point. Taiwan has passed one checkmark of history, and is looking towards a new and different future, but where does that leave a “mature democracy” and supposedly more advanced United States? The United States has seen a recent resurgence of political and societal divides when it comes to race, sex, class, or party, and the government itself has been participating in a variety of confrontational, illegal activities both in the country itself and internationally. In response to these turbulent times, many more women have been stepping up and running in political races than ever before in American history. Hillary Clinton was the first woman to be the presidential candidate of a major party in Tsai’s election year, and in 2018 more women than ever were elected to the House of Representatives, and to governorships. Americans are hungry for this revolution, and so with more women joining the political world than ever in a response to turbulent times, there may emerge a society similar to that of Taiwan’s, where women are respected and represented enough to acclimate society to the idea of electing one to the role of President.
I would like to thank Dr. Gerald Blaney for all of the guidance that he’s given me throughout the process of making this article a reality. I would like to thank my tutor, Helen Shaw, for helping me with editing some of the earlier versions of this article. I would like to thank Chou-Yuan Tseng and Catta Chou of The Awakening Foundation for their insights into Taiwanese feminist politics and society. Chou-Yuan Tseng is Senior Research Fellow at the Awakening Foundation. Catta Chou is the Director of Advocacy and Information Coordination at the Awakening Foundation. Finally I would like to thank Tsai Ing-wen’s cats for being very cute. It was a source of comfort when I was feeling overwhelmed to scroll through pictures of them on Google.
(Feature photo of Tsai Ing-wen from Presidential Office of Taiwan, CC BY 2.0)
