Independent Taipei mayoral candidate and physician Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) yesterday spoke regarding remarks he made in the past two days that drew fire from politicians across party lines, accusing him of discriminating against women.
“I should change the way I talk as my identity changes — I think I am still having a hard time transforming myself from a doctor to a politician — I am not making the change well enough,” Ko said during a campaign activity. “If what I said makes people uncomfortable, I should improve myself and apologize.”
“I would never discriminate against women. I used to work at the intensive care unit and 99 percent of my colleagues were female nurses, so women are important to me. But I am a poor speaker, I should work to improve that,” he added.
Ko was responding to accusations that he has sexist attitudes.
On Saturday, when taking part in a campaign activity for Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Chiayi mayoral candidate Twu Shiing-jer (涂醒哲), he said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chiayi nominee Chen Yi-chen (陳以真) is incapable of handling a mayor’s role, adding that, since Chen is “young and beautiful,” she would be better off as a receptionist or appearing in a tourism advertisement.
On Sunday, when speaking to students at National Yang Ming University about choosing to work as a surgeon, he said that he eliminated departments he did not like when starting at National Taiwan University Hospital.
He eliminated the obstetrics and gynecology department because he said working there would mean that he would have “only one hole” to deal with, adding “I would have to make a living between women’s legs, so, just forget about it.”
Ko’s remarks fueled protests from female politicians from the KMT and the DPP.
“Ko should face up to his problem, especially when he is making people uncomfortable. He should apologize,” DPP Legislator Chen Ting-fei (陳亭妃) said.
DPP Legislator Kuan Bi-ling (管碧玲) said that she discussed Ko’s comments with women’s rights advocate Liu Yu-hsiu (劉毓秀) and they recommend that Ko read Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, adding that they hope “he would use his ability to learn quickly to understand the true meaning of gender equality.”
KMT Taipei mayoral candidate Sean Lien (連勝文) said he could not believe Ko’s comments.
Lien’s campaign spokesperson Yu Shu-hui (游淑惠) said she did not think Ko’s comments were sincere.
Liya Chu (朱如茵), whose parents are New York-based Taiwanese restaurateurs, has been crowned the champion of US television cooking competition MasterChef Junior, after wowing the judges, including celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay, with a feast of fusion cuisine. In the finale of the show’s eighth season, broadcast on Thursday, Chu walked away with US$100,000 after serving a spread of spiced duck breast with scallion pancakes and miso eggplant, followed by coconut pandan panna cotta with a passion fruit coulis and sesame tuille. Chu, who was 10 years old at the time of filming three years ago, faced off against then-11-year-old Grayson Price from
A university student has gained the spotlight for an interactive map he designed detailing all of China’s military bases and installations throughout the Indo-Pacific region. Soochow University music student Joseph Wen (溫約瑟), who calls himself an amateur military enthusiast, said he created the map to “help people better understand the cross-strait situation.” Wen originally posted the map online on June 14 last year, but it gained greater attention after he mentioned it during an appearance on a China Television talk show. On the show, Wen said he had gathered information on the locations from publicly available Web sites, as
RISK FACTORS: ‘We hope people can cooperate and endure it ... it is possibly the very important last mile,’ Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung said Taiwan’s COVID-19 restrictions and mask regulations are to remain the same next month, the Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) said yesterday. The center reported 42,112 new local COVID-19 cases and 85 deaths, saying that the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients has dropped to a new low this month. Minister of Health and Welfare Chen Shih-chung (陳時中), who heads the CECC, said that the center is keeping COVID-19 restrictions and mask regulations the same due to the local virus situation, and an increase in the number of imported cases of the new Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 of SARS-CoV-2, among other risk factors. Easing
Opening-day ticket sales for a horror exhibition at the Tainan Art Museum were suspended twice on Saturday as the show attracted too many visitors. Titled “Ghosts and Hells: The Underworld in Asian art,” the exhibition runs until Oct. 16. It is the local version of a show that debuted at the Musee du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac in Paris. It was planned and curated by Julien Rousseau. The Tainan museum said that within an hour of its doors opening, more than 1,000 people had entered the exhibition. By noon, 3,000 physical and virtual tickets had been sold, while the museum had more than 4,000
RSS