Teenage girls should take over a special day to encourage them to break traditional gender boundaries, develop their abilities and to remind the government to create a friendlier environment for them, a women's group and legislators said yesterday.
Led by the Garden of Hope Foundation, a group of teenage girls between the ages of 12 and 16 yesterday participated in a "flash mob," making sudden appearances in Ximending, Shin Kong Mitsukoshi Mall, then at the Legislative Yuan to drum up support for a day of their own by chanting "We want Daughter's Day!"
Foundation director Chi Hui-jung (紀惠容) said the proposal is designed to call on the public to take girls seriously and stop treating them as the second-class sex.
PHOTO: LUO PEI-TEH, TAIPEI TIMES
"Traditionally, Daughter's Day celebrates a girl's transition to womanhood and wishes them luck in finding a good husband. But in fighting for gender equality, we want it to send a more aggressive message, empowering young girls to pursue their dreams," she said.
Although Daughter's Day already exists, the group called for the day to become officially recognized by the government and celebrated by members of the public. They also said the focus of the day should be on empowering girls and women.
In addition to calling for a new kind of Daughter's Day -- traditionally held on the sixth day of the sixth month of the lunar calendar, symbolizing prosperity -- the foundation also urged the government to protect teenage girls' human rights, which is detailed in the Beijing Declaration And Platform For Action from the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995.
Attending the event to accept the petition from the girls, PFP Legislator Li Yong-ping (李永萍), Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Cheng Yun-peng (鄭運鵬) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Huang Chih-hsiung (黃志雄), pledged to support the empowerment of Taiwanese daughters.
"The issue of gender equality needs to be discussed more thoroughly. Apart from a day for Taiwanese daughters, we will push for a gender equality committee in the Legislative Yuan to improve gender equality on every level," Li said.
Chen Yu-ling (陳俞綾), who won the foundation's Formosan Daughters Award for excellent performance in science and technology last year, said that one of the important messages in Daughter's Day is that young women can be successful in what are traditionally considered men's fields.
"I didn't develop an interest in science until high school, because my parents said I should be an accountant. I want to tell them that although I am a girl, I love science and I can excel in the field," said the high school graduate.
Chi said that the foundation looked forward to seeing young girls receive friendly treatment and face no discrimination in school, work and marriage simply because of their gender.
The foundation urged the public to sign their names in support of the Daughter's Day proposal on its Web site at www.goh.org.tw.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
A magnitude 5.9 earthquake that struck about 33km off the coast of Hualien City was the "main shock" in a series of quakes in the area, with aftershocks expected over the next three days, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Prior to the magnitude 5.9 quake shaking most of Taiwan at 6:53pm yesterday, six other earthquakes stronger than a magnitude of 4, starting with a magnitude 5.5 quake at 6:09pm, occurred in the area. CWA Seismological Center Director Wu Chien-fu (吳健富) confirmed that the quakes were all part of the same series and that the magnitude 5.5 temblor was
The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
The Central Weather Administration has issued a heat alert for southeastern Taiwan, warning of temperatures as high as 36°C today, while alerting some coastal areas of strong winds later in the day. Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門) and Pingtung County’s Neipu Township (內埔) are under an orange heat alert, which warns of temperatures as high as 36°C for three consecutive days, the CWA said, citing southwest winds. The heat would also extend to Tainan’s Nansi (楠西) and Yujing (玉井) districts, as well as Pingtung’s Gaoshu (高樹), Yanpu (鹽埔) and Majia (瑪家) townships, it said, forecasting highs of up to 36°C in those areas
RSS