More than 100 people joined the Women’s March in Taipei yesterday to call for gender equality and commemorate International Women’s Day.
“We aim to raise awareness that women’s rights are human rights, regardless of a woman’s race, ethnicity, religion, immigration status, sexual identity, gender expression, economic status, age or disability status,” Women’s March Taiwan founder and event co-organizer Crystal Liu (劉小妤) said in Liberty Square before the start of the march.
Photo: Courtesy of Kuan Tung-yan
The theme this year was “recognizing invisible discrimination and marching for equality” because gender inequality remains prevalent today, she said.
The march began at about 5pm at Liberty Square and finished at the Red Room International Village.
The event was the second annual Women’s March held in Taiwan.
Photo: Courtesy of Kuan Tung-yan
Compared with last year, this year’s march saw more Taiwanese civil groups participating, said Liu, adding that they hoped to make the event an annual tradition.
Taipei Women’s Rescue Foundation chief executive officer Fan Ching (范情), who took part in the event, said that despite legal protections for women in Taiwan, a sexist culture still exists.
“Taiwan has a female president and might have better legal protections for women than some parts of the world, but that does not mean that gender discrimination no longer exists in our culture or in people’s minds. We are still fighting many deep-rooted, sexist traditions,” she said.
Many of the problems that the foundation has been working to eliminate, including domestic violence, child prostitution and human trafficking, are closely related to gender inequality, she said.
Although the Council of Grand Justices ruled last year that same-sex marriage should be legalized, many people are still unwilling to understand the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community, said Chen Chih-ming (陳志明), executive director of the New Power Party’s New Taipei City Chapter.
“This shows that there is still work to be done to improve gender equality,” Chen said.
“Taiwan is a diverse democracy and we must educate every member of society to treat those different from themselves with the right attitude,” said Lee Pei-fang (李佩芳), a University of Taipei student.
“This means that our schools need to be more accepting of people regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity, whether man or woman, gay or straight,” she added.
The march is especially meaningful because its organizers are young women who are new to the gender equality movement, Social Democratic Party National Committee member Miao Po-ya (苗博雅) said.
They are inspired by the MeToo movement, come from backgrounds different than most of the veteran feminist activists and are bringing new momentum into Taiwan’s gender equality movement, she said.
The march concluded with an opening party for the Celebrating Women Art Show at the Red Room International Village, where works by women artists are exhibited.
The exhibition is open from 1pm to 6pm through Sunday.
The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it is fully aware of the situation following reports that the son of ousted Chinese politician Bo Xilai (薄熙來) has arrived in Taiwan and is to marry a Taiwanese. Local media reported that Bo Guagua (薄瓜瓜), son of the former member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, is to marry the granddaughter of Luodong Poh-Ai Hospital founder Hsu Wen-cheng (許文政). The pair met when studying abroad and arranged to get married this year, with the wedding breakfast to be held at The One holiday resort in Hsinchu
The Taipei Zoo on Saturday said it would pursue legal action against a man who was filmed climbing over a railing to tease and feed spotted hyenas in their enclosure earlier that day. In videos uploaded to social media on Saturday, a man can be seen climbing over a protective railing and approaching a ledge above the zoo’s spotted hyena enclosure, before dropping unidentified objects down to two of the animals. The Taipei Zoo in a statement said the man’s actions were “extremely inappropriate and even illegal.” In addition to monitoring the hyenas’ health, the zoo would collect evidence provided by the public
A decision to describe a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs statement on Singapore’s Taiwan policy as “erroneous” was made because the city-state has its own “one China policy” and has not followed Beijing’s “one China principle,” Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Tien Chung-kwang (田中光) said yesterday. It has been a longstanding practice for the People’s Republic of China (PRC) to speak on other countries’ behalf concerning Taiwan, Tien said. The latest example was a statement issued by the PRC after a meeting between Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財) and Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) on the sidelines of the APEC summit
A road safety advocacy group yesterday called for reforms to the driver licensing and retraining system after a pedestrian was killed and 15 other people were injured in a two-bus collision in Taipei. “Taiwan’s driver’s licenses are among the easiest to obtain in the world, and there is no mandatory retraining system for drivers,” Taiwan Vision Zero Alliance, a group pushing to reduce pedestrian fatalities, said in a news release. Under the regulations, people who have held a standard car driver’s license for two years and have completed a driver training course are eligible to take a test
RSS