Women's Movements in Twentieth-Century Taiwan
Language: English
Pages: 248
ISBN: 0252033957
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
This book is the first in English to consider women's movements and feminist discourses in twentieth-century Taiwan. Doris T. Chang examines the way in which Taiwanese women in the twentieth century selectively appropriated Western feminist theories to meet their needs in a modernizing Confucian culture. She illustrates the rise and fall of women's movements against the historical backdrop of the island's contested national identities, first vis-à-vis imperial Japan (1895-1945) and later with postwar China (1945-2000).
In particular, during periods of soft authoritarianism in the Japanese colonial era and late twentieth century, autonomous women's movements emerged and operated within the political perimeters set by the authoritarian regimes. Women strove to replace the "Good Wife, Wise Mother" ideal with an individualist feminism that meshed social, political, and economic gender equity with the prevailing Confucian family ideology. However, during periods of hard authoritarianism from the 1930s to the 1960s, the autonomous movements collapsed.
The particular brand of Taiwanese feminism developed from numerous outside influences, including interactions among an East Asian sociopolitical milieu, various strands of Western feminism, and even Marxist-Leninist women's liberation programs in Soviet Russia. Chinese communism appears not to have played a significant role, due to the Chinese Nationalists' restriction of communication with the mainland during their rule on post-World War II Taiwan.
Notably, this study compares the perspectives of Madame Chiang Kai-shek, whose husband led as the president of the Republic of China on Taiwan from 1949 to 1975, and Hsiu-lien Annette Lu, Taiwan's vice president from 2000 to 2008. Delving into period sources such as the highly influential feminist monthly magazine Awakening as well as interviews with feminist leaders, Chang provides a comprehensive historical and cross-cultural analysis of the struggle for gender equality in Taiwan.
organized seminars for the purpose of training middle-class women in the 56 women’s movements in twentieth-century taiwan methods of educating rural women about personal hygiene, environmental sanitation, domestic sciences, reading, and writing.47 Madame Chiang expected female activists to participate in fields that had been traditionally designated as women’s work, such as women’s vocational training, nursing, social services, and the resolution of domestic problems.48 In 1928, just as
patrilocal, some divorced women in recent years are returning to their natal families, soliciting financial help and moral support from their siblings and parents. In this context, these divorced women resourcefully tapped into their relationships as daughters and sisters of their biological families as a strategy for survival during times of personal hardship. Since Taiwanese women play diverse gender roles in their extended families, relational feminism in Taiwan encompasses the empowerment of
Consequently, some left the organization to devote their full resources to Between Us.92 This division between lesbian and heterosexual feminists prompted Lee Yuan-chen to urge the latter to be more inclusive of lesbian perspectives. According to Lee, a dominant majority often found it convenient to oppress and marginalize minority groups in order to maintain its privilege and power. As the dominant majority in a movement that struggled against injustice, heterosexual feminists, she argued,
vol. 3, 138–40, 287–88. 47. Yang, Ts’ui, Riju shidai, 182; Tsurumi, Japanese Colonial Education, 221; and Diamond, Norma, “Middle Class Family,” 854. 48. K’o, “Taiwan qingnian,” 7. 49. Lu, Hsin-yi, “Imagining ‘New Women,’” 88–91. 50. Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism, 244–46. 51. Yang, Wei-ming, “Lun hunyin,” 34–37. 52. Yu, Chuan, “Jiu sixiang,” 10. 53. Ts’ai, Hsiao-ch’ien, “Cong lianai dao jiehun,” Taiwan minbao no. 90, 15–16; and no. 91, 13–14. 54. Tzu, “Xiqu chengli,” 8.
Molding Japanese Minds, 122; and Sievers, Flowers in Salt, 217n. 116. Yang, Ts’ui, Riju shidai, 58; and Takenaka, Shokuminchi Taiwan, vol. 1, 132–35. 117. Tavares, “Japanese Colonial State,” 363. 118. Ibid., 361–81 119. Takenaka, Shokuminchi Taiwan, vol. 1, 139–46. 120. In 1929, Japanese residents in Taiwan comprised one-fifth of the membership in the Taiwan chapters of the Patriotic Women’s Association. Yang, Ts’ui, Riju shidai, 59; and Takenaka, Shokuminchi Taiwan, vol. 1, 132–35; and