Global Courant
In recent weeks, a wave of #MeToo accusations has poured to the top of Taiwan’s political, judicial and arts scenes, sparking a new reckoning of the state of women’s rights on a democratic island that has long prided itself as one of the Asian most progressive places.
New allegations surface almost every day, sparking debate on talk shows and social media, with comments in newspapers and activist groups calling for stronger protections for victims.
In many ways, Taiwan stands out for the significant strides women made in electing the island’s first female president and strengthening laws against rape and sexual assault before #MeToo took off in the United States. But the flood of new allegations of sexual harassment points to what activists and scholars say is deep-rooted sexism that makes women vulnerable at work, and a culture that is quick to blame victims and cover up accusations against powerful men.
The wave of complaints was sparked by a popular Netflix drama about Taiwanese politics called “Wave Makers,” which featured a subplot about a female member of a political party who told her boss she had been sexually harassed by a high-ranking party member. Her boss promises to help her report the harassment, and, pointing to how often such politically inconvenient complaints are ignored, he says, “Let’s just let this go this time.”
That quote from the fictional supervisor became a clarion call, inspiring more than 100 accusers, mostly women, to speak out on social media and share their stories of unwanted kissing, groping and, in some cases, attempted rape. They described the workplace humiliations, including inappropriate touching and unwanted advances by male colleagues and bosses, as well as lewd comments. Some of their posts have been shared thousands of times.
The stakes are particularly high for President Tsai Ing-wen’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party. Senior party and government officials were among the first to be charged with harassment and attempting to silence accusers, prompting Ms Tsai to apologize twice for her party’s mishandling of internal complaints. The criticism goes against the party’s track record of championing liberal values, including legalizing same-sex marriage in 2019 and granting adoption rights to gay couples earlier this year. And it risks the party’s credibility with younger voters ahead of next year’s presidential election.
“The Democratic Progressive Party considers itself the governing party that supports gender equality,” Fan Yun, a party legislator who is also a professor specializing in gender issues at National Taiwan University, said in a telephone interview. “The Netflix show has been seen by others as a snapshot of what is happening within the party, and has had a major impact.”
One of the most senior figures accused of harassment is Yen Chih-fa, who denied the allegation but resigned as an adviser to President Tsai. Taiwan’s highest judicial body said it had filed a complaint against a former chief justice, Lee Po-tao. Tsai Mu-lin, a senior party official, has been accused of silencing a female party official when she reported that a male colleague had tried to enter her hotel room.
Mr Tsai, who is not related to the president, has since stepped down. The woman who accused him, Chen Wen-hsuan, said she felt empowered to speak out publicly because of the other women who had shared their experiences. “This movement has taught me that injustice should not be swallowed,” she said. “After all, we can’t just let it go.”
Allegations have also been leveled against men from the main opposition party, the Kuomintang, and the whole of Taiwanese society more broadly, including in academia, journalism and recently entertainment.
TV personality Mickey Huang apologized after being accused by a woman he met at work of kissing her without her consent and forcing her to be photographed naked. Aaron Yan, a pop star, apologized after an ex-boyfriend accused him of secretly recording videos of them having sex when the ex-boyfriend was 16, a minor. Local prosecutors this week said they would investigate the allegation.
In some ways, the #MeToo movement points to a generational shift in attitudes as a result of the hard-fought progress made by women’s rights activists in recent decades. The younger generation in Taiwan started learning about gender equality in primary school, as part of the curriculum changes introduced in 2004, and have since matured.
But workplaces are struggling to keep pace.
The younger generation in Taiwan “is more aware of gender diversity and equality than the older generation,” said Wei-Ting Yen, an assistant professor of government at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania. “However, the workplace that young people enter is still dominated by the older generation.”
Lawmakers have pledged to quickly pass legislative changes to make workplaces and schools safer by holding organizations accountable for protecting victims of harassment. The changes require organizations to track complaints and provide independent, third-party review panels where necessary. Women’s rights groups have called on Taiwan to extend the statute of limitations for sexual harassment complaints, currently by one year.
But activists also say more needs to be done to address the culture of sexism that underlies the misconduct and keeps many women from speaking out. A survey by Taiwan’s Ministry of Labor last year found that only a small percentage of female respondents who said they had experienced sexual harassment at work had filed a complaint. Activists and scholars in Taiwan say that those in power, whether they are workplace supervisors or police officers or judges, are often seen as sympathetic to other those in power and likely to blame the victim.
This month, 27-year-old Lai Yu-fen accused a Polish diplomat, Bartosz Rys, on her Facebook and Twitter accounts of what Ms Lai described as assault last year. She said when she filed a report, investigators asked why she had apologized to the diplomat when she rejected his advances, and why she had not told her family about the encounter. She said a defense attorney gossiped about her to mutual friends. “I want to take back my own story,” Ms Lai said in an interview.
The Polish Office in Taipei, Poland’s de facto embassy in Taiwan, confirmed it was cooperating with authorities. Prosecutors decided not to charge Mr. Rys, whose post ended last year and later left Taiwan. He did not respond to an email request for comment, but said on his Twitter page that Ms Lai had asked for money in exchange for the allegation being dropped. (She said the request for money was part of negotiations for a legal settlement.)
For those working in Taiwan’s civil society, perhaps the most disturbing allegations are against activists seen as influential leaders in the rights community. Lee Yuan-chun, 29, an activist, this month publicly accused Wang Dan, a veteran Chinese pro-democracy dissident, of pushing him onto a bed in 2014 and asking him for sex. He said he was suing Mr. Wang.
In a statement, Mr. Wang said he hoped the public would defer judgment until a court rules on the lawsuit. “As a public figure, one’s private life will be more tightly controlled,” he said. “Because of this incident, I will pay more attention to this in the future.”
