President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) and Premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) need to create a more gender-balanced Cabinet, several outgoing members of the Fourth Gender Equality Committee said yesterday.
Taiwan Alliance to Promote Civil Partnership Rights cofounder Victoria Hsu (許秀雯) said that she and other members whose two-year term ended yesterday believe the gender ratio of the Cabinet is “severely unbalanced.”
Despite the progress the nation has made over the past few years in gender equality, and the election and re-election of the nation’s first female president, why is the current Cabinet the “most male?” asked Hsu, who also served on the Third Gender Equality Committee.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation member Huang Shu-ling (黃淑玲) said women make up just 6.9 percent of the new Cabinet.
National Alliance of Taiwan Women’s Associations member Chen Hsiu-hui (陳秀惠) said that after protests from women’s groups, Tsai in May 2016 wrote on Facebook that her administration would try to make up for its shortcoming in terms of the gender ratio of Cabinet members.
Chen said she was worried the nation’s first female president would become the nation’s only one.
The emergence of the next female president should not be left to chance, Hsu said.
The outgoing committee members urged the government to establish laws governing the Cabinet’s gender ratio in line with the UN’s Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, for which the legislature on May 20, 2011, passed an enforcement act that took effect on Jan. 1, 2012.
The Gender Equality Committee consists of 27 to 35 members, including the premier and vice premier, who serve as convener and deputy convener respectively.
Committee members are appointed by the premier and can include up to nine professionals selected from among the public, and nine representatives from gender or women’s groups.
Executive Yuan spokesman Ting Yi-ming (丁怡銘) said the government would take the suggestions into consideration.
A list of new committee members would be announced after Su approves it, he added.
Additional reporting by CNA
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