The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) has not only failed to live up to the legacy of Peng Wan-ju (彭婉如), but the government under the nation’s first female president will feature a 40-member Cabinet with just four women, women’s rights groups said yesterday during a protest outside DPP headquarters in Taipei.
During the protest, an article published in yesterday’s Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) by women’s rights campaigner Lee Yuan-chen (李元貞) was read out loud.
Lee, who served as national policy adviser to former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), criticized the gender imbalance in the proposed Cabinet.
Photo: CNA
Tsai’s gender equality policy in 2012 promised that the gender ratio in governments — whether local or central, and regardless of pay grade — would at least be one-third women, but the last time there were so few women in the Cabinet was under then-premier Vincent Siew (蕭萬長) in 1997, she wrote. Tsai’s recent predecessors have done better, Lee said, referring to President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) and Chen.
Representatives of the Awakening Foundation, the Homemaker Union Consumer Co-op, the Garden of Hope Foundation and other groups put on a short play during the protest, showing Tsai closing a door behind her and picking just male staff.
Lee said she turned down an invitation to Tsai’s post-inaugural banquet because even though she is happy to see Tsai become the nation’s first female president, Tsai has “failed to live up to Peng’s legacy of introducing women to politics in the DPP.”
Peng, director of the DPP’s Women’s Affairs Department before she was murdered on Nov. 30, 1996, in Kaohsiung, is remembered for pushing for a legal amendment guaranteeing that at least one-quarter of all politicians should be female.
Garden of Hope Foundation executive manager Chi Hui-jung (紀惠容) said women’s rights groups will not give Tsai a honeymoon period after her inauguration because of her disappointing performance so far.
The groups plan to closely monitor Tsai’s administration.
Premier-designate Lin Chuan (林全) evidently lacks a sensitivity to gender issues since his Cabinet list includes many middle-aged to elderly men, Chi said, adding that the groups would watch how Lin’s Cabinet handles gender issues.
Executive Yuan spokesperson-designate Tung Chen-yuan (童振源) said that while Lin had reached out to many women, the “current results are not what was anticipated, but we are working toward that goal.”
The incoming government’s policies and decisions would emphasize the different thoughts across genders and seek to encourage women to enter politics, Tung said, adding that the incoming government hoped for “women in government’ to be a mainstream value in Taiwan’s future.
IN A HURRY: The 199,200 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine expire on May 31, so the CECC might expand vaccine eligibility, but distribution would begin in a week at the earliest The first batch of COVID-19 vaccines allocated to Taiwan through the COVAX global vaccine-sharing program arrived yesterday, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said, adding that, after testing, it would be able to distribute them by Monday next week at the earliest. The 199,200 doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were shipped from Amsterdam on a China Airlines (中華航空) plane and arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 5:21am. After the cargo was examined and release procedures were completed at the airport, the Aviation Police Bureau escorted the vehicles carrying the vaccines to a cold chain storage facility. Centers for Disease Control Deputy Director-General
HEATED TRAFFIC: As Beijing holds naval drills near Taiwan, the Ministry of National Defense said it had a full grasp of the situation and would handle it ‘appropriately’ A Chinese carrier group exercising near Taiwan is part of what are to be regular drills, the Chinese navy said in a statement late on Monday, further escalating tensions between Taipei and Beijing. The group, including the aircraft carrier Liaoning, was conducting “routine” drills in the waters around Taiwan, a move to “enhance its capability to safeguard national sovereignty, safety and development interests,” the statement said. “Similar exercises will be conducted regularly,” it said, without elaborating. The statement came after the Ministry of National Defense earlier on Monday issued a statement regarding a rise in the number of incursions by Chinese jets into
AIMED AT TAIWAN? Institute for National Defense and Security Research research fellow Ou Si-fu said chips can be ‘bought off the shelf’ and then used in weapons The Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA) yesterday said that chips from Taiwanese semiconductor companies were not making their way into Chinese missiles “to the best of our knowledge.” A report in yesterday’s Washington Post alleged that a Chinese company named Phytium Technology Co (飛騰) used chips made by Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), along with US software, in advanced Chinese military systems. “TSMC has long placed strict controls on their chips. The export of high-tech products from Taiwan is also highly regulated,” Minister of Economic Affairs Wang Mei-hua (王美花) said. “According to our understanding, none of the end uses for those products
NO TIME: The driver tried to apply the brakes when he saw the truck, but the train did not have time to come to a full stop, an investigation report said The crane truck that caused last week’s fatal train accident had slid onto the tracks about one-and-a-half minutes before it was struck, the Taiwan Transportation Safety Board said yesterday. The board had launched an investigation into the derailment, which killed 50 people and injured 211 people, making it the nation’s most devastating railway accident in decades. Carrying 494 passengers and four Taiwan Railways Administration personnel, the southbound express train to Taitung hit the truck as it was about to enter the Cingshuei Tunnel (清水隧道) in Hualien’s Sioulin Township (秀林). The train derailed following the collision, with the left side of the eighth
RSS