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Looking Again at Taiwan's Lü Hsiu-Lien: a Female Vice President Or a Feminist Vice President?

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Looking Again at Taiwan's Lü Hsiu-Lien: a Female Vice President Or a Feminist Vice President? Women's Studies International Forum 56 (2016) 92–102 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Women's Studies International Forum journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/wsif Looking again at Taiwan's Lü Hsiu-lien: A female vice president or a feminist vice president? Wen-hui Anna Tang a,EmmaJ.Tengb a College of General Education and Sociology Department, National Sun Yat-sen University, 70 Lien-hai Rd., Kaohsiung, Taiwan b Global Studies and Languages, and History Faculty, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 14N-303, 77 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA 02139, USA article info synopsis Available online 11 April 2016 In 2000, Lü Hsiu-lien was elected Taiwan's first female vice president, adding to the striking successes of Asian women in electoral politics. Lü differs from the majority of Asia's “ruling women” in two key respects: she was elected without reliance on “dynastic descent” and she has a long track record as a feminist activist. Her position as both a pioneering feminist and a female vice president prompts us to ask whether she was able to promote a pro-woman agenda during her tenure as vice president. We conclude that despite constraints on Lü's pursuit of an overt feminist agenda—including the patriarchal political culture and a gap between Lü and Taiwan's contemporary feminist movement—she is significant as a female leader who transcends both the Asian dynastic model and the tokenistic model of women as “flower vases,” while also contributing vitally to the development of an indigenous Taiwanese feminist theory. © 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Introduction mere representatives of dynastic authority and “business as usual” for the region (Iwanaga, 2008; Hoogensen and Solheim, In a historic landslide election victory on January 16, 2016, 2006; Fleschenberg, 2008; Crossette, 1996). Journalist Barbara Dr. Tsai Ing-wen of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) was Crossette once urged readers enthralled by “Asia's Ruling voted into office as Taiwan's first woman President.1 Following Women” to “look again”: “anyone who would write feminist on the heels of the inauguration of Park Geun-hye in 2013 as history needs to look hard at how these powerful women have South Korea's first female president, Tsai's election further ruled, and what their exercise of authority has meant to the expanded the success of “ruling women” throughout Asia, people they governed” (Crossette, 1996). where a striking number of women have been elected head of Expressing similar skepticism, Andrea Fleschenberg has state (Hoogensen and Solheim, 2006). Park Geun-hye was the argued that “Asia's women politicians at the top are roaring first woman democratically elected president in East Asia, tigresses in terms of electoral and governmental record, but tame breaking a long-standing gender barrier in the so-called kittens in terms of pro-women agenda-setting” (Fleschenberg, Confucian cultural area. Yet, as the daughter of former 2008, 50). Fleschenberg's study of Asian women politicians President Park Chung-hee, Park can also be regarded as simply focused on eight countries in South and Southeast Asia. Notably the latest example of a pattern that is well known to observers missing from her discussion are East Asian countries like of Asian politics: the female politician who derives legitimacy Taiwan, where women have enjoyed electoral successes at through her familial ties from a male leader, whether as wife, various levels (Sun, 2005). The number of female legislators in widow, daughter, or sister. This “dynastic descent” model has Taiwan is currently 33.6% (Central Election Commission, 2015), brought Asia's most famous female leaders. However, it has impressively high compared to Japan, where women's parlia- also raised serious questions about whether these women can mentary representation stands at 8.1%, South Korea (15.7%), truly be considered pioneers, “agents of refreshing change,” or and even the world average (22.2% in 2015) (Huang, 2015,207, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2016.01.006 0277-5395/© 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). W.A. Tang, E.J. Teng / Women's Studies International Forum 56 (2016) 92–102 93 Inter-Parliamentary Union, 2015). Taiwan is furthermore furthermore contend that the label “tame kitten” is itself important, we contend, as an exception to the “dynastic laden with gendered assumptions about female leadership, descent” model of female leadership in Asia, and provides an which should be reevaluated with reference to Lü's own opportunity to examine the potential for Asian women leaders articulation of an indigenous Taiwanese feminist theory. as agents of social change and pioneers in social justice. Indeed, Karen Celis et al. (Celis et al., 2014,151)havetheorized If many of Asia's most famous female leaders—Indira Gandhi, that “the simple presence of female elected representatives Corazon Aquino, and Aung San Suu Kyi, for example—rose to pursuing feminist goals within political institutions can no political leadership following the imprisonment or assassination longer be taken as a standard test of women's substantive of male family members, in the early years of Taiwan's transition representation.” We follow their approach in asserting that the to democracy (1980–1990), many female candidates were very definition of “women's issues” cannot be assumed a priori, similarly the wives or widows of famous political prisoners or but should be identified through open-ended investigation and martyrs. By the 2000 presidential election, however, it was clear understood as produced through “active, multifaceted, and that Taiwanese women's political participation had moved contingent process” (Celis et al., 2014, 152). beyond this phase. In 2000, Taiwan elected its first female vice president, Annette Hsiu-lien Lü (hereafter Lü Hsiu-lien 呂秀蓮): Materials and methods a woman who has forged her own political path, and is famous as a pioneer of Taiwan's autonomous feminist movement. Long Our research draws on interviews conducted with Lü before Tsai's historic victory, then, Taiwan joined the select and other feminist activists, analysis of published texts and group of nations with a woman elected to the vice presidency, speeches by Lü, a survey of the major Taiwanese newspaper and an even smaller cohort of countries with an avowed coverage of Lü between 2000 and 2008, and participant feminist in the top circle of power. observation in the Taiwanese feminist and pro-democracy The unique position of Lü Hsiu-lien as both a pioneering movements in addition to a review of secondary literature. In feminist and a female vice president prompts us to ask whether order to identify the factors that both enabled and constrained she was able to promote a pro-woman agenda during her Lü's political career, the following sections will briefly trace her two-term tenure in the vice presidential office (2000–2008). In personal political biography and the evolution of her feminist short, will she go down in history as a female vice president or a philosophy. We then assess her record in the vice presidential feminist vice president? The distinction between descriptive office with regard to substantive representation. Finally, we representation, which serves the symbolic purpose of gender consider Lü's legacy for women's participation in Taiwan's equality, and substantive representation, which assumes that electoral politics, and her case as a counter-example to women politicians act on behalf of women, is central to the stereotypes about Asian women as political leaders. We analysis of gender and political representation (Celis et al., conclude that despite constraints on Lü's pursuit of an overt 2014; Iwanaga, 2008, 4). Most of the literature on this question feminist agenda in elected office, she has great significance as a has concentrated on female legislators and on European or female political leader who transcends both the dynastic model North American case studies. Studies of Taiwan have similarly of women's leadership common in Asia and the tokenistic focused on women in the legislature, aiming to explain the model of women as decorative “flower vases” (huaping 花瓶), relatively high level of female representation, and to examine promoted by male patrons on the basis of their feminine whether this “critical mass” has improved the substantive charisma rather than political abilities. representation of women (Gelb, 2010; Clark and Clark, 2000; Huang, 2015; Sun, 2005). In contrast, we approach the issue of Discussion descriptive versus substantive representation from a different angle, examining an individual female elite as a top leader in The long road to high office the executive branch in order to contribute to the writing of feminist history on Asia's “ruling women” as called for by As noted by Kazuki Iwanaga, that women in Asia, more than Crossette. Lü is an interesting comparative example since she is any other region, have been able to attain the highest political roughly the same age as Sonia Gandhi, Khaleda Zia, Megawati positions in their countries, although “the lack of a political Sukarnoputri, Aung San Suu Kyi, Chandrika Kumaratunga, culture supportive of women's political involvement is strongly Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, and Hasina Wajed, and moreover manifested in many societies
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