A chance to change
With the rising awareness of the importance of gender education, my colleagues in Yilan Senior High school last month launched a Facebook campaign “For homosexuality education” (我支持認識同志教育), to publicly state our position in support of teaching students to understand homosexuality more.
Its initial intention is to support the Luodong Senior High School counseling director whose method of introducing homosexual groups to 10th graders has provoked parental objections.
As more teachers from different schools have been joining the activity, the campaign has earned acclaim, but also incurred criticism.
On Thursday last week, Facebook page “Alliance of crying for hope” (搶救台灣希望聯盟) shared photographs with teachers in favor of homosexuality education, adding that it was time for parents to “take action” since those teachers have been “imposing” homosexuality education on students.
Teachers’ photographs have been swarmed with comments from opponents and supporters. On the surface, the teachers have become the object of attack, yet the page has more attention than before.
Apart from the fundamental misunderstandings of homosexuality and sex education, the phenomenon also exposes the underlying tension between parents and teachers over the “responsibility” and the “qualification” of teaching.
Undoubtedly parents and teachers own the responsibility to educate.
However, antagonism appears and deepens whenever either side seeks to dominate or influence students. When it comes to qualification, in this case, a teacher’s understanding of sex education collides with parents’ moral perspectives.
Some doubt that school teachers are professional enough with regard to gender issues and that teachers should not promote sexuality. Some suppose parents hold conventional views and that their ideas are no longer suitable for the changing society.
Teachers and parents share the same anxiety, and it would not be wise to prove who is more responsible or eligible to teach, nor should they suppose it is none of their business.
Rather, the two sides should recognize themselves as equally important to establish a society in which our children are prepared to love, live and work for the rest of their lives. In this respect, teachers and parents should be humble and willing to help each other expand their knowledge of gender issues.
As a supporter of one of the teachers, I do not think of myself as a role model or position myself as an authority. My message is simple: Since gender discrimination causes harm and takes place in classrooms and society, why not give ourselves the opportunity to face it and change it?
Chuang Yu-chuan
New Taipei City
In their recent op-ed “Trump Should Rein In Taiwan” in Foreign Policy magazine, Christopher Chivvis and Stephen Wertheim argued that the US should pressure President William Lai (賴清德) to “tone it down” to de-escalate tensions in the Taiwan Strait — as if Taiwan’s words are more of a threat to peace than Beijing’s actions. It is an old argument dressed up in new concern: that Washington must rein in Taipei to avoid war. However, this narrative gets it backward. Taiwan is not the problem; China is. Calls for a so-called “grand bargain” with Beijing — where the US pressures Taiwan into concessions
The term “assassin’s mace” originates from Chinese folklore, describing a concealed weapon used by a weaker hero to defeat a stronger adversary with an unexpected strike. In more general military parlance, the concept refers to an asymmetric capability that targets a critical vulnerability of an adversary. China has found its modern equivalent of the assassin’s mace with its high-altitude electromagnetic pulse (HEMP) weapons, which are nuclear warheads detonated at a high altitude, emitting intense electromagnetic radiation capable of disabling and destroying electronics. An assassin’s mace weapon possesses two essential characteristics: strategic surprise and the ability to neutralize a core dependency.
Chinese President and Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Xi Jinping (習近平) said in a politburo speech late last month that his party must protect the “bottom line” to prevent systemic threats. The tone of his address was grave, revealing deep anxieties about China’s current state of affairs. Essentially, what he worries most about is systemic threats to China’s normal development as a country. The US-China trade war has turned white hot: China’s export orders have plummeted, Chinese firms and enterprises are shutting up shop, and local debt risks are mounting daily, causing China’s economy to flag externally and hemorrhage internally. China’s
During the “426 rally” organized by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and the Taiwan People’s Party under the slogan “fight green communism, resist dictatorship,” leaders from the two opposition parties framed it as a battle against an allegedly authoritarian administration led by President William Lai (賴清德). While criticism of the government can be a healthy expression of a vibrant, pluralistic society, and protests are quite common in Taiwan, the discourse of the 426 rally nonetheless betrayed troubling signs of collective amnesia. Specifically, the KMT, which imposed 38 years of martial law in Taiwan from 1949 to 1987, has never fully faced its
RSS