A leaked calendar by a Taipei brokerage featuring images of scantily clad women is sparking a debate in Taiwan, long one of Asia’s most progressive places.
The Hua Nan Babes calendar, produced by Taipei-based Hua Nan Futures Co (華南期貨), features seven female employees in a handful of soft-core fashion shoots, with lots of sheer dresses, semi-undress and lounging.
On the cover, the group appears to be naked behind a strategically placed white sheet emblazoned with red script that reads: “Change!”
Photo courtesy of Hua Nan Futures Co
After the photographs leaked, parent company Hua Nan Securities Co (華南永昌證券), which typically ranks in the top 10 in trading in Taipei, called an emergency board meeting with the leadership of its futures unit, putting a stop to the printing and distribution of the calendar, local news site Apple Daily reported.
The brokerage also pulled promotional pictures from its Web site and social media accounts.
Even so, a company spokeswoman rejected the notion that the calendar objectified women.
“They simply show our colleagues’ beauty,” Hsu Hsiang-yun (許湘芸) said by telephone on Friday. “They’re young and full of energy. We strongly encourage our staff to do things like this.”
The women featured in the calendar also have a Facebook page where they dispense advice on how to invest in futures interspersed with photos of them working out at the gym and — sometimes — working out complicated financial math on a whiteboard.
The government owns about 30 percent of parent company Hua Nan Financial Holding Co (華南金控), which has elevated the controversy to a parliamentary level.
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Lee Guei-min (李貴敏), who heads the legislature’s Finance Committee, said in a telephone interview on Friday that the calendar does not meet the “professional standards” that can be expected from the financial industry.
“While the photos may be pleasing on the eye, they do not display their financial expertise, and that is why they are so inappropriate,” Lee said.
Financial products such as futures and equities are inherently risky and using these photos to hint that “trading is so beautiful” is extremely inappropriate, Lee said.
Taiwan is broadly seen as one of the more progressive places in Asia.
Its first female president, Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), was elected in 2016, and in 2017, it became the first nation in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage.
Women make up 43 percent of lawmakers, one of the highest ratios in the world.
More than two-thirds of senior leaders are women at Hua Nan Financial, which owns the brokerage, as well as insurance and retail banking units.
It is the second-highest ratio among its local peers and far above global industry averages, data compiled by Bloomberg show.
However, in its board room, just over 25 percent of members are women.
“You can’t make everyone happy,” Hsu said. “This group is very professional, and they’re working hard to help market the company. We approve of their efforts on behalf of the company.”
The company said that the version widely shared on social media was just one of several pre-production designs of the calendar and had been leaked online.
It is still planning to print the calendar, but the final design is yet to be determined, Hsu said.
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