Careful readers will have noted that lately newspapers have devoted a tiny bit of space to the new energy being dedicated to amending the "family provisions" (the chapter devoted to family-related law) of the Civil Code. The amending of these provisions affects the rights of all of the more than 4.6 million married women in Taiwan; it can be said to be the greatest victory for the women's movement over these past two years.

With the active participation of private individuals, it is possible to foster among average citizens the ability to handle public affairs, as well as a familiarity with administrative procedures. The picture shows the Hsinkang Arts Festival, jointly organized by both the community and the government in March of last year.

Paternalistic priority is unconstitutional!

"If we don't get rid of the more egregious laws, then women will never be able to change their status," says Shih Chi-ching, who in 1988 founded the Warm Life Association for Women in order to counsel divorced women. She had been through it herself, and she was sick and tired of seeing wives trapped in unhappy marriages with husbands who are out running around with other women. Yet, given the inequities in the way the laws governing the property of married couples and the guardianship of children are written, women who choose divorce risk being left with nothing at all. So many women have had to swallow their pride and live unhappy lives without ever coming to realize their own potential.

At first, hopes for amending these dismal legal provisions were pinned on the executive and legislative branches of government. But officials responded that it was more important to first amend other chapters in the Civil Code, such as those dealing with debt. "You want to amend the family provisions? Sorry, you'll have to wait at least ten years!"

To these officials, ten years may not seem like much. But there have always been many women out there for whom each day seems like a year, so women's rights groups were not willing to wait. Therefore in 1990 women's groups began activities to amend the laws. Two years ago they offered their own amendments to the Civil Code which they dubbed the "New Light Version." Then last September, hoping to draw attention to the issue, women's groups brought together legislators and lawyers and made a brilliant stroke: They appealed to the Supreme Court for an interpretation of the constitutionality of the Civil Code.

"Before filing the appeal, we considered the timing very carefully. We decided to do it just before the Fifth Term judges stepped down. We wanted to appeal to their sense of 'having one last chance to do something historic.' We asked them to help us, and to act on behalf of women and strike down the most harmful provisions," says Dagmar Mei-nu Yu, an attorney at Yu and Associates and concurrently chairwoman of the Awakening Foundation, recalling their strategy at that time.

In the end, the justices determined that Article 1089 in the Civil Code--which reads "When there is a difference of opinion over family rights between the mother and father, the father will make the final decision"--is unconstitutional. The decision means that the law must be abrogated within two years. With this victory by women's groups, the Ministry of Justice then got busy on amending the law. The Supreme Court decision "was a key stroke in changing the fate of women."

Looking back, women's groups have accomplished even more.

Out of nowhere

Of the many pieces of legislation pending before the Legislative Yuan, the "Equal Employment Opportunity Act (Draft Bill)," one of those proposals most abhorrent to the business community, has a special place for social activists. It has been through a very innovative legislative process, setting many precedents along the way. Women's rights groups, working behind the scenes to promote the bill, deserve a lot of the credit.

The origins of the bill go back to the 1985 "Decade of Women" conference held by the United Nations in Nairobi, Kenya. The conference required member states to pass "women's provisions" guaranteeing women the right to an education and to employment. But because the ROC has long been out of the UN, Taiwan was not bound by the declaration and fell behind the international tide.

"Since the government seems unable to take care of us, then non-governmental organizations have to do the job!" Women's groups sent a manifesto entitled "Expectations of Professional Women" to industrial leader Wang Yung-ching. Countless working women have been fired from their jobs in Taiwan simply because they got married or became pregnant. Meanwhile, the "lucky" ones have been allowed to stay in the employment market, suffering a heart-wrenching dilemma between their jobs and their children. Besides trying to rectify individual cases of injustice, some women also were inspired with an idea: "Why not draft a law ourselves?"

Back under martial law, all legislation was drafted by the executive branch. After the first civic organizations, such as the Consumer Foundation, were founded, these encouraged the government to draft or amend the laws. But the equal employment opportunity proposal was the first ever bill to come from "out of nowhere," drafted without reliance on the government, with non-governmental groups doing all the work and paying all the costs. It was the first bill to ever put into practice the citizen's right to propose legislation.

Women's groups worked on the draft for three years. In March of 1990, the bill was sent to the Legislative Yuan with the signatures of 39 legislators from across party lines, setting another precedent by breaking through the refusal of legislators from the main parties to promote the same legislation. And all this was preceded by a special prelude: It was the first bill ever to be the subject of formal public hearings before being formally introduced in the Legislative Yuan. A year later the Council of Labor Affairs finally got on the bandwagon, proposing their own legislation based on the women's groups' model.

During the extended process of drafting and deliberation, the concept that "raising the next generation is the common responsibility of the nation and society" gradually spread. This idea had never even been heard of before then. If women want to have children, that is their own business! Why should the company have to pick up the costs? Given the opposition of the powerful business lobby to the proposed employment act, perhaps the law will not be easily passed. But already the conceptual transformation is taking root in people's minds.

"When you think about it, we really are making history!" says a gratified Dagmar Yu.

A long, hard road

From making and amending legislation to overturning old ideas to adopting new campaign slogans, women's groups have undertaken a series of reform activities over the past few years. These have sent shock waves through the great mass of men, who have been sheltered by a paternalistic structure that has lasted for millennia.

Take for example the issue of child prostitutes. At first this was seen purely as a problem of "mores and morals." Today it has evolved into "the trampling of the rights of underage women by evil men," which implies zero tolerance. Then there is the all-too-common problem of women abused by their husbands. They have had nowhere to turn because traditionally "the law ends at the family threshold." There was a widespread social taboo on even discussing the issue. But after the case broke of a woman, Teng Ju-wen, who murdered her abusive husband, women's groups went into action and began researching legislation designed to reduce domestic violence.

Yet success has not always come easy, and there have been many setbacks. Indeed, books on social movements published around the time of the lifting of martial law (which happened in 1987) devoted most of their attention to the consumer movement and environmentalism; the outlook was not considered good for a women's movement.

There is a long history of women's groups in post-WWII Taiwan. In the early days, organizations like the Women's Alliance and the Kuomintang's Department of Women's Affairs, led by the wives of high-ranking officials, did charitable work or provided morale-building support to the armed forces. They provided a bit of color and stimulation in the otherwise monotonous and constrained society of their day.

But in those days there was no "women's movement" as we know it today; there were only organizations for "women's affairs." Although "women's affairs" included such things as concern for community life and helping destitute women (issues still of interest to the women's movement), in those days women were still fundamentally placed in the position of compassionately bearing the weight of others' troubles, and were told to take pride in the role of "supporting the men at the front and being a stabilizing force for society."

Women passively remained the "second sex" until the early 1970s. At that time, attorney Annette Lu (now a Democratic Progressive Party member of the Legislative Yuan) brought the ideas of the "new feminism" into Taiwan from the West. She dropped a rock whose ripples were, it seemed, beginning to spread.

However, just as she was getting started, Lu was arrested and imprisoned after the "Kaohsiung incident." Though Lu was sent to prison for her activities in the political opposition rather than for her feminism per se, talk of women's rights became, if anything, even more taboo than before she was silenced by prison walls.

Political trouble for early activists was just one obstacle faced by the women's movement. The root problem, says Shih Chi-ching, has been, as always, that "the opponent the women's movement is taking on--the paternalistic structure--is simply too enormous."

Is ignorance a virtue?

In other words, we are talking about a dispute pitting one half of the population against the other half. It is thus not like the consumer movement, which is aimed at a relatively limited number of socially irresponsible corporations. Nor are the needs of women always as straightforward and clear-cut as those of homeless or handicapped people who turn to the state for help. Even in the West, thinking on women's rights has taken numerous sharp turns, and today remains a matter of intense dispute. The baffling complexity and contentiousness of the issue has undeniably affected the movement's ability to make progress.

Another hindrance is the traditional thinking that has been foisted on women.

Eleven years ago, Chen Lai-hung (who later went on to be chairwoman of the Homemakers' Union and Foundation) founded the "Mother Kangaroo Reading Circle" in her community. She discovered that many women were anxious to join, but gave up their pursuit of knowledge after their husbands put up objections. In the end these housewives gave in, however reluctantly, to the idea that "good" wives and mothers should stay home and not spend much time trying to expand their own knowledge.

Shih Chi-ching, who describes women as "the most disadvantaged group" because "they are shut up in the home with no economic power or social networks," admits that when she first tried to get those who lacked any women's consciousness to stand up and fight for their rights, she had to use all kinds of methods to draw women out. "I had to beg them and even drag them." Even today, when giving a speech, she will rail against "those awful men with no consciences" in order to attract less educated older housewives who do not yet grasp the political or legal issues, and only last of all come to her main topic of amending the Civil Code.

Despite the fact that objective conditions were unfavorable to the development of the women's movement, in 1982 there was an important new development. With assistance from the US-Asia Society, "Awakening" magazine was founded. Under the leadership of Li Yuan-chen, an associate professor of Chinese at Tamkang University, the magazine advanced with startling decisiveness to lay a firm foundation for the women's movement.

For truth in labeling

Success was much harder to find for Awakening than for well-financed, widely accepted social forces like consumer protection organizations. In terms of tactics, they adopted both the "soft sell" and the sudden, sharp thrust, creating a new model for social movements.

"We always first consider every angle, then prepare fully, and when the time is right, we seize the moment!" says Dagmar Yu, whose gentle voice also reveals a firm determination.

The real breakthrough for the Awakening Foundation came on Women's Day of 1984, when they released a report entitled "A Survey of Sexual Harassment of Women."

"At that time, news about women was purely decorative, and it was only every March 8 on Women's Day that the media would deign to devote a bit more space to women. We specially targeted this opportunity, and selected a topic that fits the appetite of the media: something provocative, unprecedented, and full of lovely little numbers. That's how we hoped to get into the papers," recalls Yu.

Their approach worked wonders. Not only the newspapers, but also the three TV stations, all carried reports, opening up space for discussion of this heretofore taboo issue. It was only then, in fact, that Yu fully realized the huge power of the media to play up an issue. "They took a rough survey and turned it into the definitive authority. We were dumbfounded!"

With this experience behind them, the Awakening Foundation undertook awareness-promotion campaigns on a new issue every year on Women's Day, thus attracting the media and strengthening their appeals.

There was no overt destructive backlash against the activities of the Awakening Foundation, but they were put under pressure by "labeling."

Yu, who wears her hair short in classic "Awakening" fashion, gives a wry smile as she recalls that "many people thought that the only women in the movement were from broken marriages or were abandoned, or else they were mannish or unattractive.... And it was not only men who besmirched us like this, a lot of women thought the same way."

It showed. The foundation was less than successful at attracting either new subscribers or volunteers. Many times, they teetered at the edge of collapse, and faced a constant dilemma over whether to continue to emphasize "feminist theory" or take the route of helping women directly with practical, day-to-day problems.

What's the bottom line?

To be sure, for most unsophisticated and conservative women, the feminist theory that Awakening emphasized was a little too obscure and remote. It could do nothing to solve the urgent problems of abused or abandoned women. Fortunately, just about the same time as Awakening was getting on its feet, the first organization to provide support to help women through divorce--first called "Lend a Hand" and later the "Warm Life Foundation for Women"--was founded. Later, several women from Awakening branched off to form their own practical support groups, such as the Taipei Women's Rescue Foundation, which mainly offers assistance to underage prostitutes, and the Homemakers' Union and Foundation, which emphasizes environmental education. In addition, several "friendly peripheral associations" dealing with child prostitution, the rights of women workers, and so on, were also formed, thus gradually creating an intricate network.

With this network, if any group seizes a particularly compelling issue, the others immediately step up to help win the attention of the public. Shih Chi-ching, who announced in May that she will run for president in next year's elections, emphasizes that "there is strength in unity." Ordinarily each organization pursues its own affairs, but when something important comes up they all join hands and work together. Moreover, the development of Women's Studies in the universities has attracted many young and well-educated women to join the movement. Now the women's movement, mixing theory and practice, and combining the efforts of the middle and younger generations of activists, is growing stronger.

Yet, despite its legislative successes and the widespread affirmation it has received for seeking justice and equality of the sexes, is there a limit to the women's movement? The answer for the moment is clearly yes. In May the Women's Studies Association at National Taiwan University showed pornographic films in the women's dormitory (to spark open discussion of women's sexuality and also to alert women to the exploitative nature of pornography), and shortly thereafter some women's groups held an event in Taipei's Ta-an Forest Park entitled "Emotional and Sexual Autonomy For Women." Unfavorable media reports outweighed the favorable, and many parents--especially mothers--wrote letters in protest. It is apparent that while many approve of the positive aspects of "social reform," large parts of society harbor profound skepticism about the more forthright advocates of women's liberation.

Perhaps it is as Dagmar Yu says: "Reform groups have to deviate from the norm and courageously take the first leap, then wait for society to catch up." Women's groups have already turned many "impossibilities" into "possibilities." In which direction will they head from here? How far will their innovations go? We'll just have to wait and see.

[Picture Caption]

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Last year's Snake Alley jogging rally, held to protest the exploitation of underage prostitutes, was a collective effort by women's groups.

p.47

At an educational reform rally, the arrival of female presidential candidate Shih Chi-ching causes a big commotion.