Five years after the Gender Equality Education Act (性別平等教育法) took effect, gender equality groups and activists yesterday gave the government a “B minus” grade on promoting gender equality in schools.
“I would give the government a ‘B minus’ because, though gender equality has progressed a little in schools, it’s not enough,” Taiwan Gender Equality Education Association secretary-general Lai Yu-mei (賴友梅) said at a news conference in Taipei yesterday.
The law was enacted on June 23, 2004.
Lai said some of the progress the government had made included allowing pregnant students to take maternity leave, increasing gender equality awareness in college courses and setting up channels so that students could report on-campus sexual harassment.
“But there is a lot of catching up to do,” she added.
One of the issues still remaining, she said, was allowing female students to choose whether they want to wear pants or skirts as part of their uniform.
“The Ministry of Education promised us last October that students would be free to make that choice on all campuses by July, but we haven’t heard anything concrete so far,” she said. “In fact, we’ve received complaints in the last few days from several high school girls that their schools have forced them to wear skirts as part of the summer uniform.”
Lai also said that the ministry’s budget for gender equality programs was insufficient, noting that such programs only accounted for 0.37 percent of the ministry’s total budget last year, which meant that there had only been a 0.25 percent growth in spending over four years.
Meanwhile, Taipei Association for the Promotion of Women’s Rights board member Chen Yi-chun (陳怡君) said that schools were still reluctant to deal with cases of verbal harassment.
“Many people spread sex-related rumors or refer to girls as ‘bitches’ on personal blogs, in e-mails or in online messenger services. Such incidents are verbal sexual harassment or verbal bullying and they can create psychological harm and feelings of isolation in victims,” Chen said. “However, schools rarely take such incidents seriously.”
Taiwan Tongzhi Hotline Association secretary-general Cheng Chih-wei (鄭智偉) criticized the ministry for failing to teach students to respect people with a different sexual orientation.
“Many gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender students still face serious discrimination at school — even from their teachers,” he said.
Chao Wen-chin (趙文瑾), a member of the Awakening Foundation, said she was shocked by what schools teach students about immigrant spouses.
“The education authority seems to consider families containing immigrant spouses a ‘problem’ for society — immigrant spouses are described as a ‘second choice’ for men who cannot find women to marry, and students are told immigrant spouses are women who married their Taiwanese husbands for money,” Chao said, holding a piece of paper with an excerpt from an elementary school textbook.
The text read: “In recent years, as many people were unable to find ideal spouses, the number of families that include an immigrant spouse has increased rapidly.”
“How do such textbooks make children of immigrant spouses feel?” Chao said, urging a complete review of all textbooks as a first step toward building an education system that teaches respect for diversity.
In related news, statistics published by the Ministry of Education yesterday showed that there had been a improvement in terms of the right of women to education.
The literacy rate of women aged over 15 had grown by 4.1 percentage points over the past decade. The number of women in education had also increased by 32.6 percentage points to 85.8 percent last year.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY FLORA WANG
Taipei and New Taipei City government officials are aiming to have the first phase of the Wanhua-Jungho-Shulin Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) line completed and opened by 2027, following the arrival of the first train set yesterday. The 22km-long Light Green Line would connect four densely populated districts in Taipei and New Taipei City: Wanhua (萬華), Jhonghe (中和), Tucheng (土城) and Shulin (樹林). The first phase of the project would connect Wanhua and Jhonghe districts, with Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Chukuang (莒光) being the terminal stations. The two municipalities jointly hosted a ceremony for the first train to be used
MILITARY AID: Taiwan has received a first batch of US long-range tactical missiles ahead of schedule, with a second shipment expected to be delivered by 2026 The US’ early delivery of long-range tactical ballistic missiles to Taiwan last month carries political and strategic significance, a military source said yesterday. According to the Ministry of National Defense’s budget report, the batch of military hardware from the US, including 11 sets of M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) and 64 MGM-140 Army Tactical Missile Systems, had been scheduled to be delivered to Taiwan between the end of this year and the beginning of next year. However, the first batch arrived last month, earlier than scheduled, with the second batch —18 sets of HIMARS, 20 MGM-140 missiles and 864 M30
Representative to the US Alexander Yui delivered a letter from the government to US president-elect Donald Trump during a meeting with a former Trump administration official, CNN reported yesterday. Yui on Thursday met with former US national security adviser Robert O’Brien over a private lunch in Salt Lake City, Utah, with US Representative Chris Stewart, the Web site of the US cable news channel reported, citing three sources familiar with the matter. “During that lunch the letter was passed along, and then shared with Trump, two of the sources said,” CNN said. O’Brien declined to comment on the lunch, as did the Taipei
A woman who allegedly attacked a high-school student with a utility knife, injuring his face, on a Taipei metro train late on Friday has been transferred to prosecutors, police said yesterday. The incident occurred near MRT Xinpu Station at about 10:17pm on a Bannan Line train headed toward Dingpu, New Taipei City police said. Before police arrived at the station to arrest the suspect, a woman surnamed Wang (王) who is in her early 40s, she had already been subdued by four male passengers, one of whom was an off-duty Taipei police officer, police said. The student, 17, who sustained a cut about