Female Exodus - Taiwan 2005

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813 Words
January 7, 2005

Women in Taiwan
By Diana Leeson
Before coming to Taiwan, I was warned about sexual discrimination. I shrugged it off, thinking: that is mainland China they are talking about. I’m going to Taipei, the big city, where the society is westernized and modern!

I have since received several rude awakenings. In the first school that hired me, I noted a strange phenomenon. When snacks were being handed out, the male teachers were always given two or three servings. Sometimes the female teachers didn’t even get one!

Male teachers were never expected to do ‘bathroom duty’ or ‘floor puddle cleanup’. I guess the attitude among management is that females are much more adept at this sort of thing.

If I climbed into a taxi ahead of a male counterpart, my directions were ignored by the taxi driver until the man spoke. In many cases, I’m the only one who knows where we’re going!

As I walked down the street the other day, I met a group of Asian businessmen head-on. They were walking side by side, comfortably taking up the entire sidewalk. I had to step into a doorway to avoid a collision. As I turned around in disbelief, I saw them part like the Red Sea to allow a male pedestrian through their previously impenetrable wall.

On a city bus or on the subway, signs are posted to reserve seats for the elderly, pregnant and disabled. However, on more than one occasion I have seen a shaky old woman or an uncomfortable pregnant one lurching down the aisle, only to be ignored by the man sitting in the seat designated for her.

In the kindergartens, boy students exhibiting extraordinarily bad behavior are labeled ‘naughty’. They identify with this moniker and feel they need to live up to that expectation each day. They take their discipline in stride, with big grins on their faces. Girls rarely ‘act up’ in class, as it is considered a male behavior.

Most kindergartens in Taiwan prefer to hire female teachers, for their ‘mothering instincts’, I am told. Elementary level programs prefer to employ male teachers because the students at that age are often disrespectful to their female teachers. I managed to talk my way into a part-time job at an elementary school, despite being female. At first I was shocked when I asked a ten-year old male student to take his turn at the front of the class and he responded with a firm ‘no’. It didn’t take me long to discover that not only will the male students not comply with basic classroom protocol, but they will speak derogatively in Chinese about the teacher during class, and they will start wrestling matches with their friends in the middle of the classroom floor whenever the mood strikes them. To solve the problem, the school director will send a male teacher to come in and regain control of the classroom. This, of course, is perceived by the male students as a declaration of the male teacher’s authority and a reduction of the female teacher’s.

The schools are raising yet another generation of young men who don’t respect women. And so the problem is perpetuated.

Many Taiwanese parents will pay their life savings to have their daughters educated overseas, in North America. The problem is, many of them return to their native Taiwan to discover that their education doesn’t help them very much. It is quite common to meet a woman working as a secretary or clerk in Taiwan who actually holds a Master’s Degree from a respected American university. In most cases, her education will go to waste as she will never be given the opportunity to work at a high earning level.

The gender wage gap in Taiwan is largely unexplainable. Females are educated as well as males, if not more. According to the Women’s Labor Rights Association of Taiwan, traditional stereotypes are behind the problem.

To the rest of the world, it would appear that Taiwan is ahead of most of Asia in its professional opportunities for women. In the last thirty years, the percentage of female doctors, lawyers and engineers has increased significantly. Unfortunately, their wage does not come close to equaling that of their male counterparts.

On the Taiwan High Speed Rail project, a Taiwanese woman with a Master’s Degree from the University of Southern California holds the position of engineer. However, she is paid considerably less than what the men with the same credentials are paid. Her comments are ignored at meetings and she is treated in a condescending manner.

Unfortunately, rather than graciously welcoming the expertise of these Taiwanese nationals who have returned home to work, this society refuses to give them the respect they deserve. According to representatives of the ‘Women Awakening Organization’ of Taiwan, if there isn’t a change of heart in the near future, it could cause a mass exodus of professional women from Taiwan.

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