Women must fight for rights
I am writing to call to the attention of your women readers the rights of the world's women.
I recently had the opportunity to attend a special HBO screening in New York of a film called Iron Jawed Angels, a true story about the women's suffrage movement. The movie centers on the extraordinary efforts of Alice Paul during the seven years leading up to the passage of the constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote in the US in 1920.
It is amazing to think that it wasn't so long ago when women did not have a voice in government and didn't enjoy the full rights and privileges of citizenship in the US.
Now 80 years later, women are being denied [advancement] by a glass ceiling.
A recent study of women in corporate leadership in the US by Catalyst, a New York research organization, found that women accounted for only 15.7 percent of corporate-officer positions and 5.2 percent of top earners at Fortune 500 companies in 2002. Even more telling, the vast majority of women in top jobs were in jobs that rarely lead to the very top.
Women hold only 9.9 percent of jobs where they would be overseeing a business that earns money for their company, compared with the 90.1 percent for men.
It is the male executives who are reluctant to mentor women. Women are excluded from informal networks. Male executives are hesitant to consider women for the toughest posts.
It is women's own struggles to balance career and families that too often lead them to settle for less-demanding roles at work that eventually deny them equal opportunity. Many women believe their good-girl or good-student behavior will ensure they can work hard and get ahead in their careers and their bosses will reward them. In reality -- it is not going to happen. Sadly, equality will never be a birthright.
There are many examples in history to show that people have to seek and fight for equality.
It took the US Civil War to free blacks. However, today, the black community is still fighting for equality in their everyday lives.
In Taiwan, President Chen Shui Bian (
This is historic since no other government in Asia has had more women in such powerful positions.
Even in the US, in the administration of US ?President George W. Bush there is only one woman currently serving in the Cabinet.
What we have seen in Taiwan is vibrant democracy. More issues facing women have been brought to the forefront.
These issues include examples such as promoting job security and protecting the rights of women during cases of divorce.
It is a mockery that People First Party Chairman James Soong (
Soong instead invited himself to debate Chen, who is debating Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Lien Chan (
Soong was never known for promoting the rights of women when he served as Taiwan provincial governor.
He wants to be the president in his heart. To debate a vice president would [in his mind] hurt his image and demote his political status.
In addition, to debate a woman would be nearly unthinkable.
There is no difference between the East and the West. Women are rarely treated equally, even though they are the ones who give birth to men.
Women must learn to negotiate artfully.
They have to be more assertive and not be too intimidated to promote themselves. They should approach their bosses with the fact that they are doing a good job, expressing what they have accomplished in their jobs and ask for promotions and more pay.
Women as a group should have a uniform voice and take care of themselves. In order to break through the glass ceiling, there needs to be a strong movement.
Tien Cheng
United States
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