The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) should follow Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) precedent and name a female legislative speaker or deputy speaker, women’s groups said yesterday.
In a joint statement, the Awakening Foundation, Taiwanese Feminist Scholars Association, Garden of Hope Foundation and other groups called on the DPP to nominate at least one female candidate for speaker or deputy speaker, and to take into account all candidates’ records in promoting gender equality.
“This legislative session, 38.1 percent of legislators will be women — an all-time record for Taiwan — but neither the legislative speaker nor deputy speaker is usually a woman, and we have never had a female legislative speaker,” Awakening Foundation secretary-general Chyn Yu-rong (覃玉蓉) said. “This shows that while opportunities have gradually opened up for women to participate in politics, high-level positions are still closed.”
“We hope that at least either the legislative speaker or deputy speaker can be a woman, as KMT Legislator Hung Hsiu-chu (洪秀柱) has already served as deputy speaker. We hope that ground gained will not be lost,” she added.
Chyn said that having a female speaker or deputy speaker was important not only for the symbolism, but to help ease the passage of gender-equality laws.
Any candidate’s track record of supporting gender equality should be clear, unlike Hung’s whose views were “unclear,” she said.
Because none of the DPP candidate names currently circulating are women, president-elect and DPP Chairperson Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) should intervene to encourage the party to select a female candidate, she said, adding that her organization did not have any particular candidate in mind.
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