Sat, Apr 03, 2010 page8

• LETTERS

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  Gender equality imperative

  For centuries, men have been thought of as the main labor force in the open market as well as in the countryside. As time passed, many women have been gradually taking up jobs to earn money to share the household expenses of the family.

  Although women devote themselves to their jobs, they still face unfair treatment in the workplace.

  Reading the Taipei Times’ report on women in the workplace (“Women still face discrimination,” March 9, page 2), I have found that the number of career women is rising rapidly, although gender discrimination has still not been eliminated. Gender discrimination is particularly evident when it comes to promotion and pay.

  Thanks to our government’s policy on gender equality in employment, women are entitled to more protection in the workplace. In another Taipei Times article it was reported that India’s government decided to reserve a third of all seats in parliament’s upper house for women (“Women’s bill triggers uproar in India,” March 9, page 4). It is evident that many conservative countries have started to take women’s rights and gender equality into account.

  However, there are still many policies that limit women’s rights, limiting their achievement in their jobs. Many female professionals and laborers are confronted with prejudice in different workplaces. Occasionally, some are even sexually harassed.

  It is thus imperative that all governments take action and enact laws that eliminate these types of discrimination, thereby better protecting female workers on the grounds of justice and humanism.

  Steven Chang

  Taipei

  Cowards should be fired

  While reading a Taipei Times article on the refusal to play the national anthem at a national celebration, I was outraged (“DPP furious over refusal to play the national anthem,” April 1, page 3). The abysmally craven cowardice displayed by the organizers of the founding of the Republic of China committee, who lacked the courage to play their own country’s national anthem during a celebration to unveil the year-long celebration’s slogan and logo, was evidently an attempt to appease the sensibilities of the communist Chinese.

  I was also sickened by a premonition of what the future holds for people who are such nauseating, abject cowards. I say: “Shame on all of them!”

  They should all be immediately fired and replaced. If Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) were still alive, heads would roll without a doubt. Literally. These curs would be killed (or at least severely punished) for their cowardice.

  Council for Cultural Affairs Minister Emile Sheng (盛治仁) — who doubles as head of the committee, was reported as saying that he defended the committee’s choice, saying that the National Flag-Raising Song (國旗歌) “was chosen to go along with the ‘light pace’ of the PowerPoint presentation the committee had chosen for the occasion.”

  This has to be one of the most laughably and patently ludicrous statements that I have ever seen in print.

  It’s purely and simply a load of codswallop and stinking bullshit, emitted by a buffoone like in the Italian La Commedia dell’Arte.

  At first, given that the article was published on April 1 — a day traditionally reserved for pranks, buffoonery and tomfoolery — I had originally assumed that Sheng’s statements were the result of an impish and perverse desire to play an April Fool’s joke on the readers of this paper.

  I cannot describe the acrid, sinking feeling in my stomach when I realized that this was not the case.

  Michael Scanlon

  East Hartford, Connecticut
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