Around the middle of January, twenty-some ashtray carrying housewives gathered together in front of the National Taiwan University Hospital, inviting smokers to put out their cigarettes, members of the younger generation being the particular target of their exhortations.

At the end of January, the Consumer Foundation of the ROC was focusing on the appreciation of the NT dollar and tax rates, as well as petitioning for reductions in the prices of foreign goods. Even though the timing happened to coincide with the arrival of a cold wave, more than forty housewives split up and took their positions in front of a number of foreign fast-food stores, which were doing a thriving business despite the fact that they refused to reduce their prices to reasonable levels. There they stood guard, carrying placards reading "What satisfaction is there in an expensive hamburger?", "Don't let the hamburgers laugh at us!", and "Eat after prices are reduced!"

Around the middle of February, forty-plus housewives went together to tour the sanitary landfill facilities in the Taipei suburb of Mucha in order to gain a better understanding of the garbage management situation.

With such activities taking place throughout the city, the activism of housewives soon became a favored subject of the news media and the talk of the town. A good number of homemakers have since enthusiastically joined the ranks of this organization which has come to be known as the New Environment Housewives Association. Through media reports and word-of-mouth propagation, this group, acting as consumers' rights advocates and environmental protection leaders, has doubled in membership from its original 100 over the course of one month. Li Shen-yi, chairman of the supporting Consumers' Foundation of the ROC, indicates that housewives have been the strongest center of energy in the consumer movement since its inception, and that consumer movements in other countries gain most of their momentum from homemaker organizations.

Taking neighboring Japan as an example, the Union of Housewives, which promoted a boycott in protest of the raising of meat prices, boasts a membership of over 350,000, and there are already at least 29 similar organizations within Japan. The first formal organization in the consumer movement of South Korea, the United Housewives' Club, began playing important roles within the country long ago.

Though the housewives of Taiwan have "come out of the kitchen" relatively recently, they have done so in rapid succession. They have gotten real results in environmental protection, whereas previously it seemed to be little more than an abstract concept. Their participation in activist movements has helped to paint a new picture of the housewife.

As relates to these developments, according to investigative research women are two to six times more likely than men to be inflicted with melancholic psychoses. Of these women the large majority are housewives, whose proportionate level of dissatisfaction with their lives has been found to be higher than that of married women who hold jobs outside of the home. National Taiwan University Hospital physician Li Feng has given these diseases of unhappy homemakers the name "housewives' syndrome."

Ch'ai Sung-lin, a professor at National Cheng Chih University, once conducted a survey of housewives in thirteen counties and cities across the Taiwan Province, asking them what they considered to be their ten greatest personal worries. At the head of the list was "husband having extramarital affairs," which was followed by lack of opportunity to gain new knowledge." This is obviously a vicious circle. Most husbands who are involved in extramarital affairs explain their actions by saying that after marriage the partners are not able to progress at a similar pace, so that a gulf develops between them.

Why is it that housewives seem to give people the impression that their will to progress is weak, that they have little desire to pursue knowledge, and that their interests lie mainly in gossip? Li Mei-chih, professor of psychology at National Cheng Chih University, points out that "in order to attain self-realization, for most people there is a need for continuous intellectual rumination," while the waking hours of housewives are obviously completely taken up with routine housework and assorted household crises. Therefore, homemakers may gradually lose interest in problems of the intellect and the ability to assess them. It is even easier for them to lose sight of the value of the work that they do, developing a subsequent lack of self-confidence. Especially as the management of household affairs requires of them less skill, with husbands busy at their work and children hard at their studies, homemakers frequently develop a feeling of useless impotence.

Hence, as housewives join together in these activist organizations, they are provided with an environment of new and continuous intellectual stimulation. The sense of belonging obtained in these organizations, along with the new-felt sense of participation in society, work together as a panacea in curing the symptoms of "housewives' syndrome," helping homemakers to broaden the sphere of their concerns and to establish a sense of true achievement.

It is expected that the appearance of the New Environment Housewives Association is but the first sprout of the spring, and that as the warm winds begin to blow, housewives will be reaching up towards the heavens, until one day you may see--

Many housewives taking a late-night snack at a noodle stand. Listening to them talk, you can learn the extent to which the horizons of the earth may be expanded. Just gave a speech, yesterday was the music club, children, husbands, in-laws, cadmium contamination, new tax policies, self-help...

At last, you will discover that the world view of women is extremely vast; vast and deep.

[Picture Caption]

In the middle of February, a group of housewives got together for a tour of the sanitary landfill facilities in the Taipei suburb of Mucha.(photo by Arthur Jeng)

Housewives picketed the entrances of fast food stores, exhorting customers to wait for price reductions before buying. (photo by Yang Jen-k'ai)

Workers at the YWCA teach mothers to make their own cheeseburgers, costing a mere NT$32. (photo by Arthur Jeng)

The conversations of housewives have centered on husbands, children, and in-laws for hundreds of years?

With the kitchen as their world and the family as its populace, why is it so common for housewives to be afflicted with melancholic psychoses?

Young children provide the most common excuse for homemakers to participate in activities outside the home.

Although plastic bags may be quite convenient, they have become a prominent problem in waste management.

Organizations with housewives as their prime moving forces are working to understand conditions at sanitary landfills. (photo by Arthur Jeng)

Housewives picketed the entrances of fast food stores, exhorting customers to wait for price reductions before buying. （photo by Yang Jen-k'ai）

Workers at the YWCA teach mothers to make their own cheeseburgers, costing a mere NT$32. （photo by Arthur Jeng）

The conversations of housewives have centered on husbands, children, and in-laws for hundreds of years?

With the kitchen as their world and the family as its populace, why is it so common for housewives to be afflicted with melancholic psychoses?

Young children provide the most common excuse for homemakers to participate in activities outside the home.

Although plastic bags may be quite convenient, they have become a prominent problem in waste management.

Organizations with housewives as their prime moving forces are working to understand conditions at sanitary landfills. （photo by Arthur Jeng）